File Picture Courtesy : Hindustan Times
All the family members of the 39 Indians massacred years ago in Iraq by terror organisation ISIS have one question: why did the centre keep them in the dark all this while? According to reports by news agency PTI, heart-rending scenes were visible outside the homes of the deceased in Punjab as wailing family members tried to give vent to their pain having heard on TV, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj’s statement that all 39 Indians in ISIS captivity were dead and their bodies had been recovered.
My statement in Lok Sabha on 26.07.2017 regarding 39 Indians abducted in Iraq, https://t.co/ebwPLBLgfW
— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 20, 2018
Several relatives of the slain workers said they were not officially informed about their loved ones by any government authority, even as some demanded that the DNA reports be shared with them and the test conducted once again in India. “What do we say now?” asked a dejected Sarwan whose 31-year-old brother Nishan was among those killed.
“The government kept us in the dark all these years,” Sarwan, who belongs to Amritsar, claimed. Now after four years, they are making such a shocking statement, he agonised. “We met the Union minister (Swaraj) 11 to 12 times and were told that as per their sources, the missing Indians are alive. They have been saying that Harjit Masih, the lone survivor, is a liar. If your sources have been saying they were alive and now suddenly what happened. The government should have told us they have no information about missing Indians rather than making false statements,” said Sarwan, who heard his brother’s voice over a phone call in 21 June 2014.
With hopes dashed all of a sudden, anger seethes out. “It is the government’s biggest failure. Most of the missing Indians were from Punjab. When the government could save nurses from Kerala why it completely failed in saving other Indians,” he asked. We have been seeking time from the minister for the last several months but we were not given a chance to meet her, he claimed.
An inconsolable Gurpinder Kaur, whose 27-year-old younger brother Manjinder Singh was among the missing Indians also asked similar questions. “Initially, they were saying the Indians are alive. Now the minister today made such a statement,” Kaur said, her voice choking. We were not even told about it; we came to know from the TV, she added.
Manjinder Singh, who was into farming, was pushed into Iraq by fraudulent travel agents, she claimed. Manjinder Singh wanted to go to Dubai, said Kaur. “I am trying to know from the government how all this happened,” she said.
The family of 46-year-old Gobinder Singh learnt about the shattering news from TV channels. “We have not yet received any call from the Union ministry about the confirmation of death of 39 Indians,” said Davinder Singh, the deceased’s younger brother.
Gobinder Singh was a resident of Murar village in Kapurthala. We request the government to announce financial help and give a government job to Gobinder Singh’s son, Davinder Singh said. He also demanded that the DNA report be shared with them.
“The government should share the DNA reports with us and also get the DNA test conducted once again in India so that we can be sure that the body handed over to us is that of my brother,” he said. “We just got false assurances from the government,” said Dimplejeet Kaur, sister of Dharminder Kumar (27).
“All our hopes were dashed today,” she said. Kumar went to Iraq to earn for his family in 2014. He was a resident of village Talwandi Jhira in Gurdaspur district. Kamaljit Singh of village Chhauni Kalan in Hoshiarpur district went to Iraq in 2014, his younger brother Parwinder Singh Lucky said.
The family approached Swaraj nine times to know about the fate of Kamaljit Singh, Lucky said claiming “she did not given a suitable reply”. Lucky demanded suitable compensation and a government job to the deceased’s wife. In village Jaitpur, Reena Rani, sister-in-law of deceased Gurdeep Singh (39), is as grief-stricken.
The family demanded compensation and a government job for the deceased’s wife. In Rurka Kalan in Jalandhar district, Manjit Kaur, now the widow of Devinder Singh, is inconsolable. “All hopes that Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj was giving us in several meetings stand dashed to ground,” she said.
