External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj shakes hands with his Iraqi counterpart, Ibrahim al-Jaafari before a meeting in New Delhi on Monday. PTI Photo
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is likely to address the issue of of 39 missing Indian citizens in Iraq at 5 pm in Parliament, according to reports. The Union Minister, earlier in the day, met with Iraq Foreign Minister Dr Ibrahim Al-Eshaiker Al-Jafari in New Delhi. According to reports, the focus of the meeting between the two leaders was reportedly on the issue of 39 Indians kidnapped by ISIS three years ago from Mosul city, along with several other key areas of mutual interests.
Al-Jaafari, who is on a visit to India from July 24 to July 28, met with Swaraj at Jawaharlal Nehru for a discussion on bilateral relations between the two nations. His visit came just two weeks after Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the liberation of country’s second largest city, Mosul, from ISIS.
Swaraj, who met with the relatives of the missing Indians last week, said that the missing Indians might be imprisoned in Badush region of northwest Mosul, where the fighting between ISIS and Iraqi forces is still going on. Sushma told the family members that an Iraqi official quoting intelligence sources told Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh, that the missing Indian citizens were deployed at a hospital, from where they were later shifted to a farm, before they were put in Badush jail. But, a media report from the region on Saturday claimed that the jail was abandoned several weeks ago.
The Union Minister also told family members that Al-Jafari might come with new information on the kidnapped Indian citizens. Meanwhile, Shiromani Akali Dal MP Chandu Majra sought answers from the government on the issue in Parliament on Monday. Speaking at the Lok Sabha monsoon session, the MP said that most of the missing citizens are from Punjab and “the truth must be let out”.
