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Journalism of Courage
As the Government set up a crisis management cell to secure the release of the three Indian truck drivers taken hostage by an armed Iraqi group, the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport (KGL) company, employers of the drivers, established contact with the hostage-takers and opened negotiations for their release.
Egyptian diplomatic sources — of the seven taken hostage, one is an Egyptian national and three are Kenyans — said they were hopeful that the negotiations would work and the men freed soon.
But a Reuters report from Dubai said Arab satellite TV channel Al Jazeera had received a videotape from the abductors who gave the Kuwaiti company 48 hours to answer demands.
‘‘They said the company must pay compensation to the families of the dead in Falluja, and Iraqi prisoners in American and Kuwait jails should be released,’’ Al Jazeera reported.
In New Delhi, the Government suspended emigration clearance for workers headed for Iraq and set up a crisis management group under Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahmed to deal with the hostage crisis. A control room has been set up to monitor the developments.
In the evening, the crisis management group met and prepared contingency plans to evacuate some 5,000 Indians working in Iraq.
Indian missions in the Gulf, Ahmed said, had also been instructed to extend all possible assistance to workers interested in returning home to India.
He said that KGL Transport had assured the Indian embassy in Kuwait that it would ‘‘do everything necessary’’ to secure the release of the drivers. ‘‘We have been given to understand that the hostages are unharmed and safe,’’ he said.
It’s learnt that the armed group comandeered the KGL trucks and took the hostages to a shrine near Baghdad.
While KGL has indicated to the Indian embassy that it’s in touch with the abductors, it’s not giving out details lest it endanger the lives of the drivers.
The company has also indicated that it is willing to pull out of Iraq, a key demand of the hostage-takers.
External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh, who returned from Islamabad today, described the situation as ‘‘serious’’ and again appealed to the Iraqi group to set the men free.
‘‘I don’t want to give any false hopes. It is a serious situation and has to be dealt with in a sensitive manner,’’ he said.
The Government has decided to ask Larson and Toubro, involved in oil work in Basra, and KEC of the R P Goenka Group, laying transmission lines in Basra and Arbil, to provide protection to Indian workers employed by them.
While L&T has some 60 Indian employees, KEC has over 300 Indian workers for the transmission line sub-contract it got from Bechtel of the US. Both companies were allowed by the Ministry of External Affairs to hire Indian workers last year and complete their contracts in Iraq.
The Government today also asked its missions in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Egypt to contact the governments there and make use of their diplomatic channels with the interim Iraqi government to secure the release of the hostages.
