As External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announced that the 39 Indian men, missing in Iraq since 2014, were dead, a 56-year-old resident of Kharar recalled his narrow escape from the country the same year. Sukhwinder Singh was a construction worker in Iraq when ISIS started its campaign in 2014. Singh, who studied up to Class IV, said that he went to Iraq in May 2014 through an agent. “I was in a group of 42 people and staying in a camp near Erbil city, 85 km from Mosul where 39 Indian nationals were killed by the ISIS. Nobody was allowed to come out of the camp and we could hear sounds of gun battles every day,” he said. “At that time I did not hear that that any Indian was trapped or killed. When the fighting began, our group was near Erbil city. Some Iraqis who were also working with us told us that the ISIS had captured Mosul and were advancing very quickly,” Singh added. Singh further said when they came to know that their camp might be attacked, they spoke to the people under whom they were working, but nobody was ready to help them. “We were told that the fighting was going on, so the company could not move us out of the camp. It was a tough time,” he recalled. When asked about their return to India, Singh said that there were some youngsters in their group who called their families and told them to tell their plight to the government. “They also asked their families to take up the issue in media. The Government of India then sent special flights to pick up Indian nationals from Erbil,” he said. “It was in the last week of June (2014) when our company allowed us to return to India. We reached India in July 2014. Later, we came to know that 39 Indian nationals were missing in Mosul. It is a sad news that they were killed there,” he rued. Presently, Singh is working as a mason in Kharar and lives with his family in Janta Nagar locality there.
