‘Govt won’t abandon search for 39 missing Indians in Iraq’
NEWDELHI: External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday said there was no evidence to prove that the 39 Indians abducted from Mosul in Iraq in 2014 were dead.
Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Swaraj said, “I will not commit the sin” of declaring them dead without any evidence and added that the government would not abandon efforts to trace the missing Indians till it gets proof of their death.
The minister said the claim that the Indians, mostly construction workers from Punjab, were killed was made in June 2014 by Harjit Masih.
Masih was a part of the group but managed to escape Islamic State (IS) captivity and return to India. “Though there were many contradictions in his statement, I asked our officials to search for evidence of the killings...when an organisation like IS kills a group of people from a country, they release a list of those killed, videos or pictures. We found no bodies, blood, pictures or a list of those,” she said.
The minister said Masih's claim was contradicted by six other sources of the government. “I had told the House on November 24, 2014, that I don’t have direct contact with them. I have no proof of them being alive or dead,” she said.