Denying allegations of misleading Parliament on the details of 39 missing Indians in Iraq who were in ISIS captivity, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said it was Harjit Masih — one of the survivors who claimed that all the other people with him were shot dead but he escaped — who did not provide all the details.
She said the Congress was using the issue as a political agenda.
Giving details of her conversation with Masih in Punjabi when he called asking for help, Swaraj said he never explained how he had escaped
"He wants to mislead us on how he came out (of ISIS captivity)," she said, adding that she is aware of the secret and it will be out soon.
The sources who gave New Delhi the confidence of not abandoning the search for the 39 Indians abducted in Iraq include a "head of state and a foreign minister of another country", Swaraj said in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
She, however, refused to disclose the identity of the sources, citing "diplomatic confidentiality", even though the Opposition demanded that the same should be revealed.
Swaraj was responding to a Zero Hour mention on the issue raised by Congress MP Pratap Singh Bajwa on July 19.
She said that she has maintained all through that there is no proof of the abducted Indians being alive or dead.
And in the absence of "solid proof", it is a "sin" at a personal level and an irresponsible act on the part of the government to declare them dead, the minister said.
The Congress attempted to corner her by saying that the government has been changing goal posts all through and that Swaraj has to give "one proof" for believing they are alive.
"I have said said in Parliament and outside that I have no evidence of them being alive or dead," Swaraj said, adding that in the absence of any solid evidence or proof, she cannot presume them to be dead.
Bajwa countered Swaraj's assertion, asking what would Harjit Masih, one of the abducted Indians who had escaped, gain by claiming that he had witnessed the 39 being shot dead.
"We are not sitting idle. All countries which can help have been asked for help," she said and added, "Why will I mislead? What will I gain? What will I gain, what will my government gain by misleading?"
She informed Rajya Sabha that family of one of the abducted persons had received a call from the captors, saying he was alive.
"I had asked for permission of House (to continue efforts to locate them) and had not just taken it in confidence," she said, claiming the members had given their consent by thumping of desk or nodding.
The minister said her Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh travelled to Iraq on the very next day ISIS was overthrown from Mosul on July 9 this year and was informed by senior Iraqi officials that they had information of the Indians being picked up from Mosul airfield three years back and after holding them in captivity for some time, they were made to work in a hospital and then in agriculture field.
In early 2016 they were shifted to the prison at Badush, some 30-km away of Mosul town. This was the last known location she said.
Countering the Congress charge that its the government's duty to protect the citizens of the country she said 80,000 people have been brought back from various countries in the last three years.
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