Sushma Swaraj slams Congress for its low level politics over deaths of 39 Indians

New Delhi, March 20: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj held a press conference regarding the 39 Indians killed in Iraq by ISIS. Slamming over the disruption created during her speech by the Congress, She said "Are we going to play politics over dead bodies? I want to ask the Congress, why did they disrupt the House today?"

Slamming Rahul Gandhi, she said: "Today Congress indulged in a very low level of politics, probably Congress president thought how did no uproar happened in Rajya Sabha and decided to ask Jyotiraditya Scindia ji to lead protests in Lok Sabha. Playing politics on deaths."

"It is the duty of any responsible government to not declare anyone dead without confirmation. I have said earlier that I won't declare them dead without evidence, and won't wait for an even a day once it's confirmed," Sushma Swaraj said. "It would have been a sin to declare them dead without proper evidence," she added. "I said in 2014 that I had no evidence, said the same in 2017. This wasn't a falsehood, it was a tireless effort," Sushma Swaraj said.

 

Talking about the four states involved, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar, MEA Swaraj said, “ We got in touch with all four states and collected DNA samples from them to send them to martyrs foundation.”

Talking about the dead bodies she said, “Of those who died, Swaraj said 7 were from Punjab, 4 from Himachal, 6 from Bihar and 2 from West Bengal. The other bodies, she said, are yet to be identified. I can understand the anger of families; I see it as a natural reaction. But I'd like to say that I have never kept them in the dark.”

Claiming that India is the first country to bring back the bodies she said, “As per my estimate, India is the first country to be bringing back all the dead bodies, excluding the one which has not been identified yet.”

On Harjit Masih, who had claimed that he saw the 39 people being killed, Sushma Swaraj said that he is a person and they are a government and that a government cannot stop their efforts to search for the missing people based on one person's words.

Background:

The group of Indian laborers, mostly from Punjab, was taken hostage by ISIS when it overran Iraq's second largest city Mosul in 2014. The workers were trying to leave Mosul when they were intercepted and taken hostage by the ISIS fighters. The Government of India had repeatedly said that all efforts were on to find the Indians and, without any credible information, the workers would be considered alive. One of the captured Indians, Harjit Masih from Gurdaspur, had managed to escape and had claimed to have witnessed the massacre of the others. The government in Iraq too had earlier expressed its inability to confirm if Indians taken hostage by the ISIS in Mosul three years ago were alive or dead.