Confusion over arrival of bodies has added to the trauma of relatives of 39 Indians killed in Iraq
Confusion over the arrival of the bodies of two Indians who are among the 39 Indians killed in Iraq led to an agonising wait for their
grieving families at the Amritsar airport.
On Tuesday after
Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj informed parliament that 39 Indians kidnapped by the terror group ISIS in Mosul in 2014 had been killed, the deputy commissioner of Nawanshahr, the home district of two of the dead Indian workers, issued a circular informing that the mortal remains of the two would reach Amritsar on Wednesday.
It's not clear based on what information the circular was issued. In Delhi, the foreign ministry said no bodies were due to arrive on Wednesday. The centre has said that union minister VK Singh will travel to Mosul next week to bring back the mortal remains.
After the Nawanshahr district administration put out the information, a police team escorted relatives of Parvinder Kumar and Jasbir Singh to Amritsar airport, a journey of about 150 kilometres. But after a wait of over two hours at the airport, they returned disappointed.
"A police officer came to our house and informed us that the bodies shall be arriving today, he accompanied us to the airport," said one of the relatives who came to the airport.
"We are extremely poor people; we have no choice but to go to such dangerous places to earn a living," said another relative.
The Punjab government says it doesn't have any record of people who go abroad every year to work as labourers but blames the move on poverty.
"No policy can be framed to check the flow of labour from Punjab to Iraq. People who have nothing to eat cannot even be advised to not go to such countries and many are adopting illegal means to do that," said Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal.