On Missing Indians, Congress Preps Privilege Notice Against Sushma Swaraj

New Delhi: Amid speculation, protests and opposition questions over 39 Indians missing in Iraq since they were kidnapped in 2014, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj will make a statement in parliament this evening.

The Congress had said it would submit a privilege motion against the minister in the Lok Sabha for "misleading the nation, parliament and families" of the kidnapped Indians.

Alleging that Ms Swaraj had "lost all credibility", Partap Singh Bajwa, a lawmaker of the main opposition party, had referred to media reports that the jail in Badush where Ms Swaraj had said the Indians were held was in ruins.

The labourers, mostly from Punjab, were taken hostage by ISIS when it overran Iraq's second largest city Mosul in 2014. The workers were trying to leave Mosul when they were intercepted.

Their fate is expected to dominate the discussions between Ms Swaraj and visiting Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari today.

There has been no word on them but the government has insisted that without information otherwise, the workers are still considered alive.

One of them, Harjit Masih from Gurdaspur, had managed to escape and had claimed to have witnessed the massacre of the others. But the government has rejected it.

Days after Mosul's liberation from ISIS was announced, Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh was sent to Iraq.

Ms Swaraj had told the family members that an Iraqi official quoting intelligence sources had told Mr Singh that the kidnapped Indians were deployed at a hospital construction site and then shifted to a farm before they were put in a jail in Badush.

More than 10,000 Indians fled Iraq amid the upsurge in violence in 2014, including dozens of nurses who were held briefly by suspected ISIS terrorists in Tikrit and Mosul before being allowed to return home.