Harjeet Masih, who claims to have escaped ISIS captivity and seen 39 Indians shot dead
A man from Punjab, who escaped from Islamic State captivity in Iraq, claims that he watched 39 Indians kidnapped from Mosul last year being shot dead. The government, which has for months insisted that the Indians are safe, has said he cannot be trusted.
"I don't believe him from day one. I am still searching...our sources have said that they are still alive," Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Thursday.
"So don't trust what he is saying because if we stop believing this means we have stopped our search operation. He is only a single source who is saying that all of them are dead but I have eight sources which are saying that they are not," the minister said.
The families of the Indians have met the minister several times. "I can understand the grief of these families but I would like to say them that please believe us, the government is trying their best," Ms Swaraj said.
Harjeet Masih, who was among the Indians who were captured, claims that they were led out into the open and gunned down by the ISIS or Islamic State. He says he was also injured in the shooting but survived and managed to escape.
"I am an eyewitness to the shooting. I was hit in my thigh but survived. I looked for the others but no one replied," Harjeet told NDTV.
He alleges that he was "kept in custody" for a week by the Indian embassy and then brought back.
"I was with the embassy people for the last 10 months," he said, claiming that his family was being harassed.