After External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announced in Parliament on Tuesday that 39 Indians abducted by the Islamic State in Mosul in Iraq in 2014 were dead, their family members are in a state of disbelief and anger.
In Punjab, the kin of the dead expressed anger at not being informed prior to the public announcement. At Bhoewal village in Amritsar, a dejected Gurpinder Kaur, whose brother Manjinder Singh was among the group of 39 men, is yet to come to terms with the news.
‘False hopes’
“For the past four years, they [the Centre] has been promising that he was alive ... I don’t know who to trust. I am waiting to talk to Ms. Sushma Swaraj,” Ms. Kaur said. “Till now we have not received any information from the government ... it’s only through television that we have come to know about the deaths. Why were we not informed first,” she asked.
Her sentiments were echoed by Davinder of Murar village in Kapurthala district. His elder brother Gobinder, then 46, had gone to Iraq in 2014. “After the news of his abduction came, the government informed us that there was no substantial evidence of his death ... It kept our hopes alive. But today, we are shattered. Moreover, the news has come from television,” Mr. Davinder said.
Masih feels vindicated
Harjit Masih of Kala Afghana village in Punjab, who escaped after being abducted along with the 39 Indian workers, told presspersons that he had been vindicated. On his return, he said he had seen the other Indians being shot, but the government then rejected his claim. He was saved as a bullet just grazed him. “What I had said then has come true ... I told what I saw. The terrorists had shot all and they were dead,” Mr. Masih said.
Helpless in Nadia
In Nadia in West Bengal, the family members of Khokhon Sikdar got the information about his death through television.
“Till late in the evening, nobody has approached us from the Centre of the West Bengal government,” Abhishek Hira, cousin of Khokhon, 48, a carpenter, said. He has left behind his wife, Namita, children, Rita and Abhro, and mother, Shubha Rani Sikdar.
The family members of Samar Tikadar from the same district said they got the information about the death from presspersons. He leaves behind his wife, Dipali, and daughter, Sharmistha.
(With Shiv Sahay Singh in Kolkata)
