PATIALA’S LAST QUEEN PASSES AWAY, CM BEREAVED
PATIALA: Mohinder Kaur, matriarch of the erstwhile Patiala royalty and mother of Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh, passed away after prolonged illness at her Moti Mahal residence in Patiala on Monday evening. The cremation would be held at Shahi Samadhan, the royal crematorium, at 2.15 pm on Tuesday. Designated by tradition as ‘Rajmata’, the royal mother, she was the last anointed queen of the princely state ruled by the Phulkian dynasty. She also remained a member of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
Two months short of 95, she had been keeping unwell for some time. She breathed her last at 7.24 pm, as a result of multiple system failure triggered by a natural weakening due to old age, according to an official spokesperson.
Former Union minister and Amarinder’s wife Preneet Kaur was with her. Amarinder rushed to Patiala. She is survived by two sons and two daughters. Malwinder Singh is her younger son; elder daughter Heminder Kaur is married to former foreign minister Natwar Singh, while the younger daughter is Rupinder Kaur.
AMRITSAR: The families of 22 Punjabis, who were abducted by ISIS in Mosul three years ago, are dejected with the statement of Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari that there is no substantial information about their whereabouts.
The Iraqi minister, who met external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday, said: “We’re not 100% sure if they’re alive or not. We don’t know, but we’ll do our best.”
Gurpinder Kaur, who is waiting for her brother Manjinder Singh to return from Iraq, said: “We all were keenly waiting for the Iraqi minister hoping that he will have some information about 39 Indians missing in that country, but his statement has left us disappointed. This is shocking that neither Indian and nor the Iraq governments have any input on the missing Indians.”
We just want that the minister of external affairs to clarify the exact position and tell us where the government is heading now on this issue, she said.
Harbhajan Kaur, whose son Harsimranjit Singh is also among the 39 missing Indians, said: “We can only hope for the return of our loved ones.”
“We have been going through this torture for the past over three years,” Harbhajan Kaur said.