Kidnapped Indians killed

During her stint as External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has been the lady in shining armour for nearly one lakh Indians who have found themselves stranded on hostile shores. The minister is certain to draw on her experience, flair and deep sense of empathy to handle the aftermath of the recovery of bodies of the 39 Indians kidnapped by the Islamic State in 2014. The minister is familiar with the contours of the case and with a change of government, the responsibility of locating them fell on her shoulders.  She elevated the issue in public discussion by admitting to having discussed it with former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. As long as Mosul was a conflict zone, the fog of war precluded information from filtering out. That could be reason why the government at that time had relied on inadequately verified information that the 39 missing Indian nationals were probably in a jail.

An old world politician, Ms Swaraj thought it fit to face the media after the turmoil in the Lok Sabha precluded her from enunciating the government’s version which she articulated in the Rajya Sabha first. But her account needs more elucidation, especially whether the disclosure about their deaths was the government’s voluntary choice or the compulsion to break the news came from the Iraqis who were averse to being indefinitely saddled with the bodies of the Indians. Punjab, which has always remained invested about their condition, is also entitled to a complete and unadorned narration about the case to bring the saga of the unfortunate deaths to an acceptable closure.

The issue of Indians venturing into deadly war zones to earn a conflict bonus in exchange for risking their lives remains unresolved. The Indian Government has a quarter of century of experience of evacuating citizens from areas that transmogrified into militarily contested territories. But like all governments, it is helpless when desperate or ill-informed citizens opt to trade their well-being for a few extra dollars in active war zones. The government needs to adequately amplify the Foreign Office’s advisories about no-go zones to the main catchment areas of immigration in the country to minimise such tragedies.