39 Indians found buried in Iraq's Mosul killed by ISIS: Sushma Swaraj to RS
All the 39 Indians, who were abducted by ISIS in Iraq nearly three years back, were killed and their bodies have been recovered, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Tuesday.
As many as 40 Indians were originally abducted by terrorist organisation ISIS in June 2015 from Mosul in Iraq but one of them escaped by posing as a Muslim from Bangladesh, Swaraj said in a suo motu statement in Rajya Sabha.
The remaining 39 Indians were taken to Badoosh and killed.
Search operations led to a mound in Badoosh where locals said some bodies were buried by the ISIS. Deep penetration radars were used to establish that the mound indeed was a mass grave, she said, adding the Indian authorities requested their Iraqi counterpart to exhume the bodies.
Swaraj said the mass grave had exactly 39 bodies, with distinctive features like long hair, non-Iraqi shoes and IDs.
The bodies were then sent to Baghdad for DNA testing.
DNA testing by Martyrs Foundation has established the identity of 38 Indians while there has been 70 per cent matching of the DNA for the 39th person, she said.
Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh will be flying to Iraq to bring back the bodies on a special flight.
22 of the 39 Indians killed by ISIS were from Punjab
It has been over four years that 39 Indians went missing in Iraq's Mosul town when it was overrun by the Islamic State.
Among them, 22 were from Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Jalandhar in Punjab.
Their families continued to swing between the hope of the men being found alive and fear that they will hear the worst.
After Mosul was freed from the clutches of the Islamic State in July, there was hope that the missing Indians will be found. However, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, during his India visit in July, said he was not sure if the men were alive or not.
Also read : Swaraj's statement on Indians killed in Iraq disrupted in LS
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had earlier assured the families, who have met her several times, that all efforts were being made to trace the missing men, who had been held hostage in Iraq's Mosul town by terror outfit ISIS in June 2014.
The affected families, who are all from poor backgrounds mostly from rural areas of Punjab, say they can do nothing else but pin hope on the government's and the minister's assurances.
A man from Punjab, Harjit Masih, who escaped from the clutches of ISIS in June 2014 had claimed
that all 39 Indians had been killed.
However, Sushma Swaraj has maintained that there was no information confirming that the Indians were dead.
DNA samples were taken in October last year
The families of the 39 Indians who went missing in Iraq's Mosul in June 2014 have been asked to provide their DNA samples, but were given no reason, their kin told agencies in October.
The families of some of the missing Indians from Amritsar district were asked to go to the Government Medical College in Amritsar to give DNA samples.
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