New Delhi: There is no concrete evidence to conclude that the 39 Indians abducted from Mosul, Iraq, three years ago have been killed, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said on Wednesday in Parliament, asserting that she “will not commit the sin” of declaring them dead without any proof.
Ms Swaraj said one person, Harjit Masih, who was also abducted along with the 39 others but had managed to escape, had said the captives were killed. However, six sources, including the President of a Gulf country and a foreign minister of another West Asian country, had told the government that they are alive, Ms Swaraj said.
“There were contradictions in Masih’s version. That is why I told our embassy to find out details about them,” she said.
“This file will not close till there is proof that the 39 Indians are dead,” she added, pointing out that countries such as Vietnam and the US still look for their soldiers who went missing in wars several decades ago. Ms Swaraj also said that she had told visiting Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari that she would not accept anything on the issue without “proof”, and requested him to continue the search for them. India had requested Iraq to locate the missing Indians after Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul from ISIS this month.
