ISIS abduction: Lone survivor demands job, withdrawal of trafficking case agnst him

Harjit Masih, the lone survivor who had managed to flee the ISIS following his abduction along with 39 other Indians in Iraq in 2014, today asked the government to withdraw a case of human trafficking registered against him by the Punjab police.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today informed the parliament that the 39 Indian workers, abducted by the ISIS in Iraq, were killed and their bodies have been recovered.

Reacting to the minister's revelation, 29-year-old Masih said he had been maintaining for the last three years that all the other Indians had been killed.

"I had been saying for the last three years that all 39 Indians had been killed (by ISIS militants)," he said.

 

"I had spoken the truth," asserted Masih, a resident of Kala Afghana village in Gurdaspur district of Punjab.

The group of 40 Indian workers, mostly from Punjab, and some Bangladeshi were taken hostage by ISIS when it overran Iraq's second largest city Mosul in 2014.

Of the 40 Indians, only Masih had managed to escape and had claimed to have witnessed the massacre of the others. But the government had rejected his claims.

Masih today also urged the government to withdraw the case of human trafficking registered against him at Batala, while describing it as an "illegitimate" one.

"An illegitimate case has been registered against me by police. I spent six months in jail and now I am out on bail," he said.

Batala police had booked Masih on the charges of human trafficking and cheating under various sections of IPC in 2016.

He also demanded for a job from the government.

"My financial condition is bad. We are three to four brothers and sisters. Presently, I am working as a farm labourer," Masih said.

To a query, Masih claimed that the government agencies kept him in custody for a year in Delhi, Bangalore and Gurgaon when he returned to India.

"The government told me not to tell anyone that they (other Indians) were dead. They asked me to say that I did not know about them and that I had run away (from Iraq)," he told media.