August 17, 2026 04:08 am (IST)
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No proof that Indians abducted in Iraq are dead: Sushma
New Delhi, Nov 28 (IBNS): External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday told the Rajya Sabha that the 39 abducted Indians in Iraq were not killed as there have been no proofs supporting the media reports of their execution.
"These reports did not emerge for the first time yesterday but for the last one month, the report has come across at least 10 times. However, there are no proofs that the 39 missing Indians were executed," Swaraj told the House.
The minister said she has met the victims' families for five times.
"One of them called Harjeet managed to escape the custody of Islamic State terrorists but there are contradictions in his statement. He said that the Bangladeshi nationals escaped and all Indians were killed except him," said she.
"His stories left us with two options- either to accept his (Harjeet) version and declare the Indians dead and the other is not to accept his version and search for them. It was the government's responsibility to discard his story and carry on the search for the remaining Indians. We did the same," Swaraj said.
She clarified that according to six confidential sources of different organisations, the government got to know that the Indians were not killed.
"We continued the search and got to learn from several sources that the Indians were not killed. We have contacted all possible helps and country heads during which we have been given written messages from six sources that say the Indians are alive," Swaraj claimed.
However, she clarified that, "I have no communication on the Indians' current location but I have been confirmed by the sources that the Indians were not killed."
This comes after a new channel on Thursday night claimed that in Erbil in Iraq, its reporter met with two Bangladeshi construction workers, who said that one of the 40 Indians, taken hostage by IS earlier this year, had managed to escape and told them that the rest of his group had been killed.
The Indians worked with a construction company in Baghdad.
They were kidnapped in Iraq' Mosul in June.
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