India to Bring Back Bodies of 39 Workers Killed by Islamic State
Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj met the victims’ families on Monday before making the announcement.
The bodies of 39 Indians who were killed by Islamic State militants (IS) in Iraq will be brought back to India next week, a minister has said.
Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj met the victims’ families on Monday before making the announcement.
The minister confirmed last week that the DNA of 38 workers matched with bodies found in a mass grave.
Since the kidnapping in Mosul in 2014, the Indian government had always maintained that they were alive.
Davinder Singh, whose brother is one of the victims, said the minister had assured to help the families.
“We were assured all kind of assistance, including the possibility of a government job to a family member,” he told Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency. India was engaged in prolonged efforts for the release of the construction workers and even sought Iraq’s help in locating them after Mosul was recaptured last year. But Ms Swaraj confirmed the deaths while speaking in the Rajya Sabha (upper house of parliament) last week. She added that it was highly likely that the body of the 39th worker had also been found but she said that it was a 70 per cent match.
The families of the victims told BBC Punjabi that they found out about the deaths through TV channels.
Rajrani Sharma, whose husband Pritpal is one of the victims, said she was shocked after hearing the news because she had been led to believe that he was still alive. “They assured us over and over again that everything was all right - that they were alive and that the government was searching for them,” she said.