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Govt should have informed us about the deaths, says family

A total of 6 persons from Bihar were among the 39 kidnapped by the Islamic State in Iraq

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File photo of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj with the family members of Indians stuck in Iraq
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A pall of gloom descended on Bihar's Siwan district, which lost two of their sons among the 39 Indians who were killed in Iraq in 2014, as confirmed by Union Minister Sushma Swaraj.

A total of 6 persons from Bihar — Santosh Kumar Singh, Bidya Bhushan Tiwari, Adalat Singh, Sunil Kumar Kushwaha, Dharmendra Kumar and Raju Kumar Yadav — were among the 39 kidnapped by the Islamic State in Iraq. Of these, Yadav's body is yet to be identified.

In 2011, Bidya Bhushan Tiwari and Santosh Singh, residents of Siwan's Sasarav village, had migrated to Iraq's Mosul to earn their bread and butter. Tiwari (30) worked in a construction company in Iraq and had taken Singh along with him.

"We had been requesting the government for his whereabouts even since we lost contact with him in June 2014. We were always reassured, but today all our hopes are dashed," said Puroshottam Tiwari, Tiwari's uncle.

Another family member told reporters that Tiwari has left behind his wife and two kids — a 10-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son — apart from an ailing mother.

"The government should have informed us first about the deaths. It was very disturbing to know it otherwise. We were always reassured and the news has been very shocking for us," he added.

The wails of Tiwari's widow echoed in his ancestral home on Sasarav. "When I had met Minister Sushma Swaraj, she had promised that she will bring my husband back to me. How will I raise my kids now?" she said.

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