Congress played politics over the death of 39 Indians in Iraq : Sushma Swaraj

"Will we play politics even on people's death?" Swaraj asked while addressing a press conference.

“Today Congress indulged in very low level of politics, probably Congress president thought how did no uproar happened in Rajya Sabha and decided to ask Scindia ji to lead protests in Lok Sabha. Playing politics on deaths,” media reports quoted Swaraj as saying. 

The Minister said   she had spoken to the agitating members and taken their assurance that they will not create noise, even though they refused to vacate the Well. "But today, Congress was leading the protests and Jyotiraditya Scindia was leading the Congress members."

Her reaction came after a section of opposition members in the Lok Sabha continued to create uproar in the House over various issues, preventing her from making a statement on the development. The House was adjourned for the day as the situation did not improve.

Swaraj, however, had informed the Rajya Sabha that 39 Indians, who had gone missing in Iraqi town Mosul in 2014, have been killed in captivity of ISIS terrorists.

Swaraj noted that while everyone listened to her statement patiently in the Rajya Sabha, she expected the same in the Lok Sabha but the Congress led by Jyotiraditya Scindia disrupted her speech.

She said Minister of State V K Singh will go to Iraq to bring  the victims' bodies back home.

The Minister said told the media  DNA samples of 38 people have been matched, verification of one victim is under process.

She informed that  27 of the people were from Punjab, four  from Himachal Pradesh, six from Bihar and two  from West Bengal. One person whose DNA has matched 70 percent with the samples is from Bihar.

She said that the next logical conclusion would to grant closure to the families by bringing the bodies back. "I have asked the High Commission to fast track the process to bring the bodies back so that the family members can at least hold funeral rituals and grieve their dead."

In July last year, Swaraj had told Parliament that there was no evidence that the missing people had been  killed by the Islamic terrorists and that they can't be declared as dead. 

Referring to her previous statement, the External Affairs Minister said, "I had told the House continuously for three years that until I get proof of their death, I will not close any file. It would have been a sin had we handed over anybody's body claiming it to be those of our people, just for the sake of closing file."

"We had been saying that we neither have the evidence of them being alive nor the evidence of them being dead. We maintained this in 2014 and 2017. We did not keep anyone in dark," Swaraj said. She quoted her own statements from the House and said, "this wasn't falsehood, this was a tireless effort."

She said she doesn't know when the 39 Indians were killed after being abducted in 2014.  "We do not know when they were killed, could be six months back or two years back, in any case search for bodies would have begun only after the liberation of Mosul which happened in July."

"I would like to clarify that our people were not found in any mass grave but the bodies were recovered from under a mound. The first sign was that the bodies were exactly 39 in number, plus strands of long hair and a kada was found. So we started conducting DNA tests. the Martyr's Mission completed their formalities and decided to announce the deaths today, I told the House about it before their press conference," Swaraj said.

Sushma Swaraj said that the Government did all it could to find the missing Indians. "We reached out to every diplomatic channel that could have helped us in getting any clue to the location or the state of the missing Indians," she said.

She also said that the Government could not have declared the missing Indians dead in haste. "There are some Governments that believe in the concept of 'missing believed to be dead', but we were stern that I won't close their files until and unless I get concrete proofs," Swaraj said.