Indians killed in Iraq: PM Narendra Modi announces Rs 10 lakh ex-gratia each to victims’ families

A casket of one of the 38 victims being loaded onto an IAF aircraft in Baghdad on Sunday. (AP Photo)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced ex-gratia payment of Rs 10 lakh each to families of Indians killed in Iraq’s Mosul. This comes a day after a special plane carrying the bodies of 38 of 39 Indians, who went missing in Mosul in June 2014 and whom the government recently declared dead, landed in Amritsar on Monday.

On Sunday, Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh left for Iraq to bring back the mortal remains of those killed. The 39th body is not being brought back now since DNA testing had only provided a 70 per cent match; the others have had more than 95 per cent match. READ: Tears and grief at end of four-year wait: Caskets from Mosul flown home to Punjab

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Earlier this month, Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj had told Parliament that as many as 40 Indians were abducted by the Islamic State from Mosul in Iraq in June 2014, but one of them, Harjit Masih, escaped by posing as a Bangladeshi Muslim. The remaining 39 Indians were taken to Badoosh and killed, she had said.

Of the 39 who died, 27 are from Punjab, four from Himachal Pradesh, two from West Bengal and six from Bihar.