They were killed as Indians, not illegal immigrants: Kin
MOSUL MASSACRE Irked by VK Singh’s comment, they say govt should save its citizens AMRITSAR:
The families of some of the Punjab residents who were killed by the Islamic State in Iraq hit out at Union MoS General VK Singh on Tuesday for stating that the deceased were illegal immigrants and the Indian embassy in the war-torn country had no record of them.
Forty Indians, mostly from Punjab, were abducted by Islamic State (IS) near Mosul in Iraq in June 2014 and one of them managed to escape captivity by posing as a Muslim from Bangladesh. The remaining men were killed nearly a year ago.
The remains of the 38 men reached the country on Monday nearly four years after they went missing and were identified through DNA and forensic tests. The body of the 39th worker wasn’t brought back because there hasn’t been a complete DNA match.
After bringing back the victims’ remains on Monday, Singh had said: “it is a fact that they (the workers) went there (Iraq) through an illegal agent”. Alluding to the 2014 rescue of 46 nurses from Kerala, the minister said the nurses could be brought back home because their records were available with the embassy.
Reacting to Singh’s remark, Gurpinder Kaur, the sister of deceased Manjinder Singh , said: “Should we take it that the government did not acknowledge them as Indians?” .
“They were not killed because they were illegal immigrants, but because of their nationality, that is Indian. The IS militants could also have killed Bangladesh nationals, but they did not. They killed them because they were Indians,” she added.
Gurpinder, who galvanised the families of the missing men in the region, said if the minister was making “such an excuse”, he should declare that those killed in Iraq were not Indians.
She said it was the primary duty of the Indian ambassador in the country to immediately
They were not killed because they were illegal immigrants, but because of their nationality... They (Islamic State) killed them because they were Indians GURPINDER KAUR, sister of deceased Manjinder Singh
inform the government in India after news broke out that the situation had worsened in Iraq. “Unfortunately, he did not inform (about the workers) for two months,” she alleged.
She also said that the Indian worker contacted the Indian embassy regularly about their situation from June 4 to June 17 in 2014 but no measure was taken to rescue them.
“Although they went to Iraq illegally, information that they were in trouble was provided to the embassy. I kept contacting the ambassador over the phone from June 6 to June 15 from here 10 times in a day. I spent huge money on the phone calls”.
“Once the embassy had been informed about them, they cannot say that they did not have a record. Should not they have been rescued being Indian nationals in such a situation?” she asked.
Sarwan Singh, the brother of deceased Nishan Singh, said the minister’s statement was unfortunate.
“On June 1, my brother told me over the phone that they have informed the embassy in Baghdad that they are in trouble and need to be rescued. An official of the embassy uttered rude words. He said, ‘Have you ask us before coming here?’ We in India and they in Iraq kept contacting Indian officials, but the efforts bore no fruits,” the Sangoana village resident said.
“No one expects such kind of statements from a minister of state,” he said and accused the government of making failing to save its citizens.
He also charged the central government of discriminating against the residents of Punjab.
“As the majority of the victims are Punjabis and Sikhs, the Centre did not make efforts with dedication. If they were from any other state, they would have been saved like the nurses from Kerala,” he said and added “Had the victims belonged to any other state ..., the Centre would have distributed government jobs like biscuits” .
Manish Kumar, brother of Harish Kumar, said, the minister should have thought about the pain of the victims’ families before making the comments.
“Centre and state government are treating the victims’ families as footballs,” Gurpinder said.
MODI ANNOUNCES ₹10-LAKH EX-GRATIA
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced ex-gratia payment of ₹10 lakh to the next of kin of each of 39 Indians who were killed at Mosul in Iraq, an official release said.