A LOOK BACK AT EVENTS AFTER THE INDIAN WORKERS WENT MISSING IN 2014

Tracking the sequence of incidents from the day the group of 40 Indians were abducted by Daesh in Mosul in 2014 to the day when minister Sushma Swaraj confirmed their death in Rajya Sabha

a group of 40 indian workers, mostly from Punjab, and some Bangladeshi were taken hostage by Daesh when it overran Iraq’s second largest city Mosul in 2014

Of the 40 Indians, one Harjit Masih from Gurdaspur had managed to escape and had claimed to have witnessed the massacre of the others. But the government rejected it

The Indians were first kept at a textile factory in Mosul, made to work at a hospital construction site, shifted to a farm, before being moved to a prison in Badosh after Masih escaped

after Daesh was overthrown, Indian minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh visited iraq. He along with Indian ambassador and an Iraqi official visited Badosh prison

Relentless search for them led to a mass grave in Badosh, where deep penetration radar was used to establish the presence of bodies below a mound

The bodies, which were exhumed, had distinctive features like long hair, ‘kada’, non-Iraqi shoes and iDs. The bodies were later taken to Baghdad for Dna testing

On Monday, March 19, 2108, it was proved that 38 matches were confirmed and 39th person had been 70 per cent matched because DNA of his relatives was used in absence of his parents

On Tuesday, March 20, 2018, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told the Rajya Sabha that the abducted Indians were dead and their bodies recovered