Iraqi authorities have found the bodies of 39 Indian construction workers near Badush village in Iraq, who were abducted when Islamic State militants overran the northern city of Mosul in 2014, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on 20 March.
The bodies were buried near the village of Badush, northwest of Mosul, in an area that Iraqi forces recaptured last July.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj while addressing the media condoled the deaths. According to Swaraj, out of the 39 people:
- 27 from Punjab
- Two from West Bengal
- Six from Bihar
- Four from Himachal Pradesh
Here is a complete list of the victims:
According to PTI, the abducted workers, most from northern India, had been employed by a construction company near Mosul when militants captured wide swaths of the area.
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Relatives said they received phone calls from some of the workers five days after Mosul was captured, asking for help. Around 10,000 Indians worked and lived in Iraq at that time.
Search operations led to a mound near Badush where local residents said bodies had been buried by the IS, Swaraj said in the Parliament.
Iraqi authorities used radar penetration technology to establish that the mound had mortal remains buried under them, she said, and then exhumed the bodies. Indian authorities then sent DNA samples from relatives of the missing workers, which matched with 38 of the bodies during tests in Baghdad. Tests to find the 39th body are under process.
(With inputs from PTI)
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