All 39 Indian construction workers kidnapped by the Islamic State in 2014 from Iraq's city of Mosul have been killed, the government said on Tuesday, confirming the worst fears after keeping alive hopes over their survival for the last nearly four years.
The confirmation came in the form of a suo motu statement External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj made in the Rajya Sabha after a limited truce was struck between the government and the opposition in the chamber of the House Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu.
Sushma Swaraj, who had earlier made statements, including a July 22, 2017 answer in the Lok Sabha that "as per the latest information from multiple third party sources, they are all safe", on Tuesday rejected the lone survivor Harjit Masih's claim that the 39 Indians were shot dead as a "cock and bull story which wasn't true".
After questions were raised over the government's confirmation, the minister held a press conference to say that the government cannot declare any person dead without concrete proof and it was her duty to inform Parliament first about their death rather than tell their families first.
"I refused to close the files (of the 39 Indians) till we had concrete proof in hand (about their death)," she said.
Earlier, she informed the Rajya Sabha that Indian efforts to search for the missing led to a mound near Badush village in Mosul where a local resident said some bodies had been buried by the Islamic State under a mound.
She said deep penetration radars helped find 39 bodies buried under the mound. The bodies were exhumed and DNA samples from relatives of the missing workers were sent to Iraq.
The minister said DNA samples matched with 38 bodies and the 39th was yet to be fully confirmed because the DNA sample sent was from someone else in his family as his parents are dead.
Every Indian grieves with those who lost their loved ones in Mosul. We stand in solidarity with the bereaved families and pay our respects to the Indians killed in Mosul.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 20, 2018
The MEA and particularly my colleagues @SushmaSwaraj Ji and @Gen_VKSingh Ji left no stone unturned in trying to trace and safely bring back those we lost in Mosul.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 20, 2018
Our Government remains fully committed towards ensuring the safety of our sisters and brothers overseas.
"The first sign was that the bodies were exactly 39, plus strands of long hair and a 'kada' were also found. So we started conducting DNA tests."
The victims -- 27 from Punjab, four from Himachal Pradesh and six from Bihar and two from West Bengal -- were construction workers employed by an Iraqi company in Mosul. The victims were taken hostage when the Islamic State took control of the second largest city in Iraq. They were trying to leave Mosul when they were abducted.
She said Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh will go to Iraq to bring back the mortal remains of the Indians. "The plane carrying the bodies will first reach Amritsar, then Patna and then go to Kolkata."
She dismissed the claims of Masih, the only survivor who escaped from Mosul. "He was not willing to tell me how he escaped," she said.
He had escaped along with Bangladeshis with the help of a caterer with a fake name Ali, she said.
Briefing media persons later, Sushma Swaraj said her government did not believe in declaring a missing person as believed to be killed.
"Not a single day was spared in our efforts to trace them after they went missing in June 2014," Sushma Swaraj said.
Asked why then there was such a delay in confirming the death of these Indians, she said the DNA samples were initially matched with the bodies found in mass graves in Iraq.
Asked what kept hopes alive of the fate of these men, the minister said at least two Heads of State had said they might not have been killed.
The lone Indian wondered why the government didn't believe him all these years after having "spoken the truth".
"I had been saying for the past three years that all 39 Indians had been killed by ISIS militants," Masih, 28, a resident of a village in Gurdaspur district, told reporters.
He said they all were killed in front of his eyes.
Narrating the incident, Masih said the Indians were kidnapped by the militants and after some days they fired indiscriminately at them.
"I was fortunate to manage to escape from the clutches of the militants despite getting a bullet injury," he said.
Reacting to the confirmation of deaths, Swaran Singh, whose kin was among the 39 dead, said Sushma Swaraj should have informed the aggrieved families about the deaths before "exploding the bomb on us" in Parliament.
"This is nothing less than brutality to the families who were waiting for the safe return of their boys. The minister should have called us before exploding the bomb on us," Singh said.
He said the government earlier trusted unreliable sources about their safety and "it is very much possible that the claim made by them now is also wrong".
Kanwaljit Kaur, mother of Dharmendra Kumar of Batala village in Gurdaspur district, said: "I have not lost hope. I have shortlisted a few girls for him and anxiously waiting to see him as a bridegroom."
Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Partap Singh Bajwa, who had raised the issue last year in parliament, accused the government of misleading the families.
"This is complete failure of MEA and the government of India," he tweeted. "I raised this issue many a times in Rajya Sabha that why is the Government playing with emotions of families by giving them false hopes. Can there be anything more shameful than this?"
NAMES OF 39 INDIANS CONFIRMED DEAD IN IRAQ
Of the 39 Indians whose killings in Iraq were confirmed by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj here on Tuesday, 27 were from Punjab, four from Himachal Pradesh, six from Bihar and two from West Bengal.
According to the External Affairs Ministry, those from Punjab were Dharminder Kumar, Harish Kumar, Harsimranjeet Singh, Kanwaljit Singh, Malkit Singh, Ranjit Singh, Sonu, Sandeep Kumar, Manjinder Singh, Gurcharan Singh, Balwant Rai, Roop Lal, Devinder Singh, Kulwinder Singh, Jatinder Singh, Nishan Singh, Gurdeep Singh, Kamaljit Singh, Gobinder Singh, Pritpal Sharma, Sukhwinder Singh, Jasvir Singh, Parvinder Kumar, Balvir Chand, Surjeet Mainka, Nand Lal and Rakesh Kumar.
Those from Himachal Pradesh were Aman Kumar, Sandeep Singh Rana, Inderjeet and Hem Raj.
While Samar Tikadar and Khokhan Sikder hailed from West Bengal, Santosh Kumar Singh, Bidya Bhushan Tiwari, Adalat Singh, Sunil Kumar Kushwaha, Dharamendra Kumar and Raju Kumar Yadav were from Bihar.
Except for Raju Kumar Yadav, the bodies of all others have been identified through DNA samples.
Sushma Swaraj told the media here that Yadav's body was only 70 per cent identified and that could be because the DNA sample sent was from some other member of his family as his parents were not alive.
All these Indian workers had gone missing after the Islamic State overran the Iraqi city of Mosul in June 2014. I HAD BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG THAT ALL 39 WERE DEAD, SAYS LONE SURVIVOR HARJIT MASIH
The lone Indian who managed to escape from the Islamic State in Iraq's Mosul in 2014 on Tuesday reiterated that all the 39 Indians who were seized were killed long ago and wondered why the government didn't believe him all these years.
"I had spoken the truth," survivor Harjit Masih said.
His assertions came after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told Parliament that the bodies of the 39 Indians were spotted using deep penetration radar. These were exhumed from mass graves and their identities were confirmed by DNA tests.
"I had been saying for the past three years that all 39 Indians had been killed by ISIS militants," Masih, a resident of a village in Gurdaspur district, told reporters.
He said they all were killed in front of his eyes. "I am wondering why the government was not accepting what I had said earlier."
However, Sushma Swaraj dismissed his claims during her statement in the Rajya Sabha. "He was not willing to tell me how he escaped," she said.
Narrating the incident, Masih, 28, said the Indians were kidnapped by the militants and they were kept hostage.
After some days, the militants indiscriminately fired at them.
"I was fortunate to manage to escape from the clutches of the militants despite getting a bullet injury," he said.
The 39 who went missing in Iraq were all from poor families, mostly from rural areas of Punjab.
Their families were asked in October last year to provide their DNA samples.
Sushma Swaraj had earlier assured the families, who met her several times, that all efforts were being made to trace the missing men.
But the minister maintained all these years that there was no information confirming that the Indians were dead.
AMARINDER 'SHATTERED' OVER DEATH OF INDIANS IN IRAQ, AAP SAYS SWARAJ SHOULD QUIT
Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday said he was "shattered at the heart-wrenching news" that 39 Indians, kidnapped by the ISIS, had been killed in Iraq.
His Congress colleague Partap Singh Bajwa and Aam Aadmi Party's Kanwar Sandhu also expressed their grief and targeted External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for misleading the families of those who had died.
Sandhu also asked for the minister's resignation.
Shattered at the heart-wrenching news from @SushmaSwaraj that the 39 Indians missing in Iraq, most of whom were Punjabis, are dead. My heart goes out to the families who had been living in hope since their reported abduction by ISIS in 2014. Prayers with all of them.
— Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) March 20, 2018
Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Partap Singh Bajwa added that he was saddened by the news confirming the deaths of those missing in Iraq and his thoughts and prayers are with their families.
"Why did Sushma Swaraj mislead the families for more than 3 years.This is complete failure of MEA & GOI," he tweeted.
"I raised this issue many a times in Rajya Sabha that why is the Government playing with emotions of families by giving them false hopes. Can there be anything more shameful than this?" Bajwa added.
Bajwa appealed to the government of India and Punjab government to provide all possible help and financial aid to the families.
AAP leader and Kharar MLA Kanwar Sandhu demanded the resignation of the union minister.
Sushma Swaraj should resign as external affairs minister taking responsibility for the lies she spread about the 39 missing Indians in Iraq.#39missing
— Kanwar Sandhu (@SandhuKanwar) March 20, 2018
"Sushma Swaraj should resign as external affairs minister taking responsibility for the lies she spread about the 39 missing Indians in Iraq," Sandhu said in a tweet.
MAJORITY OF FAMILIES OF PUNJABIS KILLED IN IRAQ UNAWARE OF THEIR DEATH
Majority of the families of the 31 Punjabi men who went missing in the Mosul city of Iraq were found ignorant of the fate of their kin who were massacred by the ISIS militants in 2014.
While the statement made by Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj is yet to reach these families living in remote villages, Swaran Singh, the brother of one of the 39 Indians killed in Iraq from Sangowal village in Amritsar, expressed anguish over the way the announcement was made by the minister
“This is nothing less than a brutality to the families who were waiting for the safe return of their boys. The minister should have called us before exploding the bomb on us,” said an aggrieved Swaran Singh.
Refusing to accept her claim that all the 39 Indians who were kidnapped by the ISIS were killed, Swaran Singh said that the government earlier trusted on unreliable sources and maintained that they were safe and were held hostage at an undisclosed place.
Later, through another unreliable source, it stated that they were held hostage in a mosque, but that again was proved wrong.
