Indians missing in Iraq: One man returned with ‘news,’ got Govt red carpet, now he is in jail

READ | Indians missing in Iraq: ‘Let them get at least one of the boys to call any of us, so we can keep hoping’

But Swaraj’s inability to offer any proof-of-life, and the two-year-long silence from the missing men, have extracted an enormous emotional cost from the families.

Nothing has symbolised the government’s own confusion than its conduct towards Harjit Masih of this village near Batala. He claimed he had been abducted with the rest, seen all of them being shot dead by the abductors, and that he was the only one to escape with no injuries except a slight graze from a bullet on his thigh.

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Masih is now in Gurdaspur Central Jail, after being arrested in March this year, for offences including human trafficking and cheating. He was picked up after the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) directed the Batala police to take action against him, and a relative of his, Rajbir Masih, who works in Dubai.

“No efforts should be spared to apprehend these persons who are illegal agents involved in trafficking of poor and innocent persons from the different districts of Punjab,” reads the March 18 letter from M C Luther, joint secretary and protector general of emigrants, MEA.

For the families, Masih is the lie to their hope. His sudden arrest came after a complaint by families of nine of the missing men. They alleged they had paid Masih and Rajbir sums ranging from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh for visas and jobs abroad.

“It is his word against Sushma Swaraj’s. Whenever I have asked her about Masih, she has said, ‘don’t talk to me about him, do you believe me or him?’,” said Gurpinder, the 30-year-old sister of Manjinder Singh of Bhoewal in Amritsar, who speaks on behalf of the affected families in Punjab. She is also the main complainant in the case against Masih.

The Dubai-based Rajbir, the first accused in the case and declared an absconder, told The Indian Express over phone that he and Masih were being made scapegoats.

“Harjit has been punished for escaping [from the militants],” Rajbir said. “And how can I be held accountable if some tragedy takes place? They were all working happily there before the unfortunate incidents. They were sending money to their families for 11 months. They were posting their pictures on Facebook. No one lodged a complaint during that period.”

But the families question how only Masih could have escaped unscathed. They allege that he and Rajbir “sold” the men to IS. In the complaint, Gurpinder contends that Harjit abandoned the group in May and faked the rest of his story. And some families say they had spoken to the abducted youth up to June 21, 2013, almost a week after Masih’s date of their killing.

It has also not helped Masih’s case that he has come up with various versions of his escape.

Yet, his life since then, as narrated by his relatives, including some eight months in virtual house arrest in Delhi and Bengaluru.

On official familiar with his case said the last thing the newly elected NDA government wanted back then was news of a massive human tragedy, even though there was little it could have done to prevent it.

“We did not want Masih scaring the families involved, particularly because there were discrepancies in what he was saying, when our sources were telling us that the men are alive,” the official said.

For Masih, whose home in the village is a decrepit extension of a cow shed, it was a new and strange life. From Delhi, he was allowed to call his family occasionally but not to tell them where he was. But they eventually learnt the truth about his whereabouts. Responding to their entreaties, the government permitted them to visit him once — but again, it had to be hush-hush.

“It was a VIP accommodation somewhere in Noida, a very nice flat. He had been given a cook who made good food for all of us when we stayed with him for a few days,” the relative said.

The relative showed pictures from those days on his phone, too. “He could roam around the compound, but could not go out anywhere,” he said, refusing to share the photographs.

But the secrecy could not last forever, compelling Swaraj to make a statement in Parliament that Masih was in the “protective care” of the government because of a threat to his life “in view of his escape” from the IS. A friend of Masih’s said the government told them his life was under threat from the victims’ families.

The relative said Masih was also given “some money” by the government, and the promise of a job. “He was sent to Bengaluru, where he went to a company for some work. They said he would need training. I think he came back after that,” the relative said.

Early in 2015, Masih was allowed to visit his family and never went back. In April 2015, at a press conference organised by the Aam Aadmi Party in Chandigarh, he repeated his story. The Centre then cut him off. As reported by The Indian Express, Masih began working as a daily-wage labourer in the village mandi.

A lawyer familiar with the case against Masih said it was weak. “How can there be a case of trafficking against him when all these people whose families made the complaint received money from their sons or husbands? Trafficked people don’t get salaries. Masih was himself a paid worker in Iraq. It was the government of India that brought him back. If he is an offender, then why did the government keep him in Delhi and other places under its “protection” for so many months?” said the lawyer, who is at the Batala district courts.

Gurpinder says she decided to make a police complaint against Masih because of his “callous” attitude when she called him “to know the real truth”. He had responded with a “Do what you want, I am going off to Dubai”.

She is disappointed with the government, too. “They need to show us proof-of-life. If they now tells us that the men are no longer alive, they have to give us proof of death also.”