by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced ex-gratia payment of Rs 10 lakh to the next of kin of each of 39 Indians who were killed at Mosul in Iraq, an official release said.
The mortal remains of 38 Indians, killed by the Islamic State terror group in Iraq’s Mosul in 2014, were brought to Amritsar in a special IAF aircraft on Monday.
Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh accompanied the mortal remains to Amritsar from Mosul.
Although 39 Indians were killed as the Islamic State took over Mosul, the mortal remains of only 38 of them could be brought back as identification of one body is still pending.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Thirty-nine Indians kidnapped by the Islamic State (IS) terror group in Iraq’s Mosul in 2014 are dead, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Tuesday.
The minister confirmed the deaths in the Rajya Sabha and said the mortal remains will be brought back to India by Union Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh.
“General V.K. Singh will go to Iraq to bring back the mortal remains of the Indians killed in Iraq. The plane carrying the mortal remains will first reach Amritsar, then Patna and then go to Kolkata,” Sushma Swaraj said.
She said the bodies were spotted using deep penetration radar and were exhumed from mass graves.
Their identities were confirmed by DNA tests.
“The bodies were brought to Baghdad for DNA testing. The DNA of 38 Indians have been matched.
“For verification of the bodies, DNA samples of their relatives were sent there. Four state governments — Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar — were involved in the process,” the minister said.
The victims — 31 from Punjab, four from Himachal Pradesh and four from Bihar and West Bengal — were construction workers and were employed by an Iraqi company in Mosul.
They were taken hostage when the IS took control of Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. The workers were trying to leave Mosul when they were taken hostage.
Sushma Swaraj also dismissed claims of Harjeet Massi, one of them who escaped from Mosul.
“He was not willing to tell me how he escaped,” she said.
The minister said that she had concrete evidence that he was lying.
Massi had escaped along with Bangladeshis with the help of a caterer with a fake name ‘Ali’, she said.
She said the details were revealed to her by Massi’s employer and the caterer who helped him.
In July 2017, Sushma Swaraj had said that she would not declare the 39 Indians dead without concrete proof or evidence.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Washington : The World Bank on Tuesday approved $400 million in additional funding to help rebuild services to Iraqi areas recaptured from Islamic State (IS) militants after a three-year military campaign, the global development bank said.
The World Bank also said it would fund studies on how to involve the private sector in the reconstruction of Mosul’s airport and restore public transport terminals as well as parts of the railway network, Reuters reported.
“The package represents an additional financing to the Iraq Emergency Operation for Development Project [$350 million] approved back in July 2015 and already underway in seven cities in Diyala and Salah Ad-Din governorates,” the World Bank said in a statement.
It said the new funding would focus on rebuilding in five sectors – water and sanitation, electricity, health, transport and municipal services. The funds will also help with the restoration and preservation of cultural heritage sites in Mosul’s Old City, which was heavily damaged in fighting.
Iraqi government forces, backed by a US-led coalition, retook Mosul in May – by far the largest city to fall under militants’ control – after nearly nine months of urban warfare. Iraqi government officials have estimated it will take at least five years and billions of dollars to rebuild Mosul.
—AB/OIC-UNA
