39 Indians missing in Iraq are dead: Sushma Swaraj

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OUR CORRESPONDENT / NEW DELHI

Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj today informed the nation that 39 Indians, who were believed to have been kidnapped by Islamic State militants in Iraq in 2014, had been confirmed dead after their bodies were found.

The bodies were recovered from a mass grave and DNA tests had confirmed them to be those of the construction workers who went missing from the Iraqi city of Mosul, External Affairs  Minister Sushma Swaraj told parliament today.

“With full proof I can say these 39 are dead,” the minister said. The government had for years said it would only declare the men dead once it had full evidence.

Swaraj said the authorities in Baghdad helped identify a mass grave and with the help of deep penetration radar, the buried bodies were discovered and exhumed.

Making a suo moto statement, Mrs Swaraj said, her deputy General V K Singh will go to Iraq to bring back the mortal remains of the Indians killed. The plane carrying the mortal remains will first go to Amritsar, then to Patna and finally to Kolkata.

DNA testing provided matches for 38 of the missing men while one was a 70 percent match, Swaraj said. “We recovered ID cards, long hair, kada and some non-Iraqi footwear,” Swaraj said. A kada is a bracelet worn by Sikh men, who do not cut their hair.

Most of the workers were from Punjab.

“Shattered at the heart-wrenching news … that the 39 Indians missing in Iraq, most of whom were Punjabis, are dead,” Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said on Twitter.

“My heart goes out to the families who had been living in hope since their reported abduction by ISIS in 2014.”

The government had maintained for years that it believed the men were alive and it was trying to secure their release.