Former External Affairs Minister of India Sushma Swaraj was ‘just a phone call away’, recalled Davinder, whose elder brother Gobinder from Murar village in Kapurthala was among those killed in Iraq and the family was able to find his whereabouts only with the help of Swaraj.
In the year 2014, 39 Indian workers, who had gone to Iraq to earn their livelihood, were kidnapped and killed by ISIS, a jihadist militant group, and it took almost four years to find the whereabouts of all of them, all thanks to Sushma Swaraj who was then serving as foreign minister.
Among 39 Indians, 27 were from Punjab, six from Bihar, four from Himachal Pradesh, and two from West Bengal.
“She spared no effort in finding our dear ones,” Gurpinder Kaur was quoted as saying by NDTV on Wednesday, a day after Swaraj died in New Delhi after suffering massive cardiac arrest on Tuesday night.
According to the families, Sushma Swaraj was a constant source of support and helped them bring back the mortal remains of their loved ones, which were found in a mass grave.
“Otherwise we would have waited our whole life to know about their fate,” Gurpinder Kaur told NDTV while praying tributes to Swaraj, whose brother Manjinder Singh, 26, was among the victims. Manjinder Singh wanted to go to Mumbai and was pushed into Iraq by fraudulent travel agents.
“We are deeply shocked to hear about Sushmaji’s death,” said Davinder, whose elder brother Gobinder from Murar village in Kapurthala was among those put to death in Iraq.
Gurpinder Kaur said Sushma Swaraj was “just a phone call away” and always courteous to them. “She was easily accessible,” she said.
Swaraj was known as “crusading Supermom of States” for her swift response to distressed or stranded Indians abroad mainly through Twitter.
The Indian authorities learned about the kidnap after taking up the matter with Iraqi authorities. They were kidnapped by a terror group ISIS from Mosul in June 2014 and taken to Badoosh where they were killed.
“We could never forget what Sushmaji did. She put in her best efforts constantly for at least four years in tracing our relatives while taking up the matter with Iraq and then bringing the mortal remains to India,” Davinder told PTI on Wednesday.
“She was always polite and humble and never made us feel that she was a minister,” she said, adding “we will always be indebted to her and can never forget her”.
“Though they could not return alive, she at least gave us a result. Otherwise, we would have waited our whole life to know about their fate,” Gurpinder Kaur said.
