Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh is expected to fly to Iraq today in a C-17 plane to bring back mortal remains of the 39 Indians, killed in the war-torn country, sources said.
Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh is expected to fly to Iraq today in a C-17 plane to bring back mortal remains of the 39 Indians, killed in the war-torn country, sources said.
Sources also said the minister is expected to bring back the bodies by late Monday or Tuesday.
"MoS Singh will most probably leave tomorrow for Iraq to bring back mortal remains of these 39 Indians. After coming back, he will first go to Amritsar followed by Patna, Kolkata to hand over bodies to their relatives," a source said.
Families of some of these victims had met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj here on March 26.
Earlier, Swaraj had told Parliament last month that all the 39 Indians, abducted by the ISIS in Iraq in 2014, had been killed and their bodies recovered.
As many as 40 Indians were abducted by the ISIS terror group from Mosul in Iraq but one of them escaped posing as a Muslim from Bangladesh, Swaraj had said in Rajya Sabha.
The remaining 39 Indians were taken to Badoosh and killed, she had said.
Search operations led to a mound in Badoosh where locals said some bodies were buried by the ISIS. Deep penetration radars were used to establish that the mound indeed was a mass grave, she had said, adding the Indian authorities requested their Iraqi counterpart to exhume the bodies.
Swaraj said the mass grave had exactly 39 bodies, with distinctive features such as long hair, non-Iraqi shoes and IDs. The bodies were then sent to Baghdad for DNA testing.
DNA testing by Martyrs Foundation established the identity of 38 Indians while there has been 70 per cent matching of the DNA for the 39th person, she had said.
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