Bodies of 38 Indians killed by IS arrive from Iraq

The bodies of 38 Indian construction workers kidnapped and murdered in Iraq by the Islamic State group returned home yesterday four years after their disappearance.Grieving families – who were told for years by government officials that their loved ones were still alive – waited at the Amritsar airport in Punjab to receive the coffins from Baghdad.The bodies were brought by a special Indian Air Force aircraft.The victims were mostly from poor families in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh and were employed by a construction company in Mosul when they were abducted by extremists.External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told parliament last month that 39 bodies were unearthed from a mass grave in Badush, a village northwest of Mosul.DNA testing confirmed the identity of 38 of the corpses.One test was a partial match, with further examination needed, Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh said yesterday.Families and fellow villagers had been waiting outside the airport complex since early morning for the bodies to arrive.“It is a very sad moment for all of us. Most of the victims were young men who had gone to Iraq to earn money. Their families are devastated,” said Surjit Singh, a relative of one of the victims.Seven victims were from Bihar and West Bengal.Minister Singh who accompanied the bodies to Amritsar from Mosul said: “We are thankful to the authorities in Iraq for the help to locate the victims and exhume the mortal remains. The government of India did its best to locate these people. It is unfortunate that we had to get them back in coffins.” While the coffins of 31 victims – 27 from Punjab and four from Himachal Pradesh – were handed over to the respective authorities at the Amritsar airport, seven coffins were shifted to another aircraft to be flown to West Bengal (3) and Bihar (4).Punjab’s Cultural Affairs Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu was present at the airport to receive the coffins, along with officials of other states to which the victims belonged.The victims’ families were told by officials not to open the coffins since the bodies had been exhumed from graves and could emit toxic gases.However, most have refused the advice and said they would opt for a traditional cremation.Singh, who visited Iraq four times in the past few months to know about the missing Indians and to finally get back their mortal remains, said the central government did its best in the matter.Sidhu announced on behalf of Punjab Chief MInister Amarinder Singh that the families of the victims from Punjab would be given a grant of Rs500,000 each and one member of their families would get a government job depending on their qualification.The families of the victims are being given a monthly pension of Rs20,000 by the government.The chief minister had asked people in Punjab who are protesting against a Supreme Court order on an SC/ST law to allow the mortal remains to pass without hindrance.The Indians were kidnapped in June 2014 as the Islamic State group overran large swathes of territory in Iraq, including the major northern city of Mosul.Indian officials for years insisted the abductees were alive until proven otherwise, drawing criticism from relatives who accused the government of keeping them in the dark.Swaraj denied the government had given the families false hope.It is not known when the Indians were killed.