145;First threat , then the wait146;

After 42 days of captivity in Iraq, including a few traumatic TV moments with guns at their foreheads, the return of Tilak Raj, Antaryami Ba...

After 42 days of captivity in Iraq, including a few traumatic TV moments with guns at their foreheads, the return of Tilak Raj, Antaryami Bains and Sukhdev Singh on Friday morning was quite simply the reunion of three weary men with their ecstatic families.

After an initial blip of fear when Antaryami was dragged away for the now famous photograph of him in an orange jumpsuit with an assault rifle pointed at his head, the three men said their time spent as hostages was more 8216;8216;monotonous8217;8217; than anything else.

The truckers were abducted, while transporting cement and computers, by men masquerading as checkpoint authorities outside Fallujah on July 21. Lost, they got off to ask for directions, and were ushered away at gunpoint.

8216;8216;They didn8217;t tell us why they kidnapped us, but we understood. They did not torture us or beat us or even treat us badly. We had a TV, though we did not understand anything, but we saw reports about our families. We were fed Iraqi food, which was mostly some sort of roti and vegetables,8217;8217; Tilak Raj told reporters at Punjab Bhawan, where the three were rushed to from the airport.

8216;8216;They would often tell us we were about to be released. It was from this that we realised that the negotiations were see-sawing. Initially, they would threaten to kill us, but after that it was just a long wait,8217;8217; he said.

The men were also made to do namaaz with the abductors, who gifted them with copies of the Koran and other Islamic books on the day of their release two days ago.

While the families of Antaryami and Tilak Raj arrived here later on Friday, Sukhdev Singh8217;s father Sher Singh, red-eyed from no sleep, arrived with a Punjab state convoy three hours before the Kuwait Airways flight landed. 8216;8216;I will not let him Sukhdev go out of Punjab. We will not allow them, they are our children. The rest is up to them,8217;8217; he said.

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Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who is understood to have met the men later in the day, has apparently indicated that the State Government will employ them.

Sukhdev drove trucks for fleet owners in Mumbai and Kolkata, before debts and loans drove him to the Gulf. The Punjab government is understood to be considering hiring Antaryami and Tilak Raj as well, even though they live in Himachal Pradesh.

The tension doesn8217;t end, however, for Sukhdev Singh8217;s family. Another relative, Swarn Singh from Panaicha village, still works in Iraq for KGL. 8216;8216;We spoke to him 20 days ago and we told him about Sukhdev. But we have not heard from him since,8217;8217; said Sukhdev8217;s uncle Gurdev Singh. 8216;8216;We will get Sukhdev married off now8212; maybe that will give him reason to stay in the country.8217;8217;

Finally, just before noon on Friday, the three men were escorted into Toyota Qualises and sent home, where celebrations are expected in Ropar and Una.

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Yet, the happiness is betrayed by a terse uncertainty8212;their families have no working members now. Small sums of compensation came from KGL, which doled out close to a million dollars to get them out of Iraq, but the assurance of government jobs is a source of hope.

A sense, probably best described as happy disenchantment, prevails over the men, about the American occupation of Iraq. 8216;8216;We don8217;t think anybody has the right to occupy some else8217;s land and county. It is wrong. But we could not choose where KGL would send us,8217;8217; said Tilak Raj. 8216;8216;We are too poor to choose.8217;8217;