Kin of 39 Indians missing in Iraq asked to undergo DNA tests

Amritsar (Punjab): Families of all 39 Indians who went missing in Iraq three years ago have been asked to undergo DNA tests for unspecified reasons.

"All of us have been asked to undergo DNA test; don't know why. We are very nervous," Gurpinder, the sister of Manjinder, who is one among the 39, told ANI.

In 2014, 39 Indian labourers, mostly from Punjab, were reportedly taken hostage by ISIS when it overran Iraq's second largest city of Mosul. The workers were trying to leave Mosul when they were intercepted.

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

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had earlier told family members that an Iraqi official quoting intelligence sources had told Minister of State for External Affairs General (Retired) V.K. 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.

However, reportedly earlier in July, the Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Eshaiker al-Jafari had asserted that his dispensation possessed no substantial evidence on the missing persons.