New Delhi: Dashing all hopes of reuniting with the families, the 39 Indians who were abducted by Islamic State in Iraq’s Mosul in 2014 have been declared dead, Hindustan Times reported.
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj told the Rajya Sabha on Monday, that the bodies were exhumed from a mass grave and sent to Baghdad for DNA tests.
“Yesterday we got information that DNA samples of 38 people have matched and DNA of the 39th person has matched 70 per cent,” Swaraj was quoted as saying by HT..
Minister of state for external affairs VK Singh would bring back the mortal remains from Iraq. The plane would first go to Amritsar, then to Patna and then to Kolkata, the minister said.
The government had classified the men as missing and had said it would continue its search for them till it received concrete proof of their death, report reads.
The only Indian to escape the abductors, Harjit Masih, had claimed that the others in the group were gunned down on June 15, 2014.
