Majority of families of Punjabis killed in Iraq unaware of their death

Rachna Khaira
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, March 20

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.

“It is very much possible that the claim made by them now is also wrong,” said Singh that the families may file a case against the Union Government for keeping them in dark and a re-investigation of the claim made by Swaraj about the death of their kin in Iraq.  

Kanwaljit Kaur, mother of 25-year-old Dharmendra Kumar of Batala village in Gurdaspur, said, “I have not lost hope. I have shortlisted few girls for him and is anxiously waiting to see him as a bridegroom.”

As her voice was filled with laughter and hope, this correspondent didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth.

Manjit Kaur, wife of the deceased Punjabi youth Davinder Singh from Roorka Kalan village, said: “Umeed jiundi e ajje tak…aaun taan sahi…vekhyo kidda welcome karna mein…(Hope is still alive. Let him come and see how we have planned his welcome).”

 Little did she know that she would not see her husband again.

It was last year in July that the Ministry of External Affairs had sought DNA testing of the 39 Indian families.

The process was initiated after Iraqi authorities informed India about mass graves found in and around Mosul.

The process was completed in December last year following which Swaraj on Tuesday informed the Rajya Sabha that all 39 Indians kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq’s Mosul were found dead.