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The MEA has met with relatives of the 39 missing Indians, giving assurances that they were trying their best to get the men home. Why hasn't the government admitted that the chances seemed bleak? Would that have provided the families with a sense of closure?
The Iraqi foreign minister finally said what the Indian government has been reluctant to admit for three years, though it was becoming increasingly obvious to all. Ibrahim al-Eshaiker al-Jaafari, Iraq's foreign minister, who arrived on a five-day tour of India on July 24, said they did not know whether the 39 Indian workers, who were abducted in Mosul three years ago, were still alive or had been killed. He said there was no evidence to support either hypothesis. The government was making its best efforts.
In the three years that the men went missing, apart from unconfirmed sightings, there was no indication that the men were even. 39 is a big number; it is not easy to conceal or confine that many. The Indian government maintained that the workers were abducted as free labour for construction, agriculture and such activities. Minister of state for foreign affairs, General V.K. Singh, told THE WEEK that this was what they suspected all along. But the Indian government did not give any hint as to the reported sightings of the men. The last one was at a prison in Badush.
Right after the liberation of Mosul, Singh went to Iraq and came back with the Badush story. It helped that Badush was still under the Islamic State at that point, and that even Mosul was not been completely cleared. But media reports soon invalidated the Badush theory, because it turned out that the prison itself has been demolished in the fight and was little more than a heap of rubble. The ministry of external affairs did not respond to these reports. Even now, after al-Jaafari's comments, they have not deigned to react.
For some reason, the Indian government has chosen to fan the theory that the men were alive and has managed to silence the one man who vehemently maintained that he had seen them shot. In fact, he himself escaped by pretending to play dead until the militants left the area. That one man, Harjit Masih, was the 40th labourer and he managed to return in 2014, one year after all of them went missing. Masih was brought back to India and he has since insisted that the men were dead.
The government discredited his story from the beginning. On his return, he was lodged in safe houses for some time before he was freed. Masih, later, was accused by some families of having trafficked the men, and found himself behind bars for the crime. Families of the victims, too, do not believe him since there are inconsistencies in his accounts. There are some accounts of people having made contact with the men after the day, when according to Masih, they were shot. Masih, now out of jail, says that the dead can't return, whatever attempts the government may make.
The MEA has met with relatives of the 39 missing Indians, giving assurances that they were trying their best to get the men home. Why hasn't the government admitted that the chances seemed bleak? Would that have provided the families with a sense of closure? Why was no compensation announced. Singh told THE WEEK that there are no confirmed reports of their death, yet.
Why has the government not considered Masih's account as evidence? Is it waiting for Iraq to break the bad news, because doing so itself may appear as a failure? Or is there some other reason?
