Officials at the Ministry of External Affairs here said Iraqi authorities have assured them full cooperation in locating these missing Indians.
As Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State (IS) in Mosul, families of 39 Indians who were kidnapped by the terror group in 2014 are hoping that their kin will finally return home. Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder on Monday called up External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, asking her to make all-out efforts to trace and facilitate the return of Indians, mostly from Punjab.
Officials at the Ministry of External Affairs here said Iraqi authorities have assured them full cooperation in locating these missing Indians. They said Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh was planning to travel to Erbil in Iraq to oversee operation of locating and return of these Indians held hostage for the past three years. The MEA, in a statement, termed the liberation of Mosul from IS an important milestone in global war on terror and said India welcomes it.
Earlier, in his telephonic conversation with Swaraj, Amrinder said the families of the hostages were keenly awaiting the return of their kin. Assuring all possible effort by her ministry to bring back the Indians, who were construction workers, Sushma said General VK Singh will coordinate with the Iraqi government to facilitate the return of the Indians stuck there. She said she had also directed the Indian embassy to extend all help to the stranded Indians, a spokesperson of the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) disclosed.
Air India officials at the airports had also been instructed to facilitate their return, said Sushma, adding her ministry had activated all available sources to trace the missing Indians. While Sushma had held several meetings with the families of the hostages over the months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also been raising the issues with other countries in the Middle East region.
Swaraj, during one of the dozen meetings she had with the families since 2014, told them that a source in Iraq provided information about a group of Indian men holed up in a church in Mosul. "They are alive and everything possible was being done to ensure their safe return", she assured them. "We have no other information to prove that they are not alive," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.
Gurpinder, whose brother Manjinder Singh was one of the 39 Indians abducted, said, "Sushma Swaraj has said that they are using GPS to locate them. Even Gen VK Singh is being sent. We hope to see our men back soon."
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