World » Asia

Bodies of 38 Indians killed in Iraq reach India

NEW DELHI — A special plane carrying the bodies of 38 Indian construction workers killed by Daesh (the so-called IS) in Iraq arrived in the northern Indian city of Amritsar on Monday. Indian Junior Defense Minister V.K. Singh flew back with the bodies. Daesh abducted and killed the workers shortly after seizing the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in the summer of 2014. Iraqi authorities discovered the remains in a mass grave last year after retaking Mosul, and identified the bodies last month. Forty workers were initially abducted. One escaped and the presumed remains of another have yet to be positively identified. Authorities are awaiting DNA samples from a close relative. The workers were mostly from northern India’s Punjab state and had been employed by a construction company operating near Mosul. Around 10,000 Indians lived and worked in Iraq at the time. The victims may have been killed because of their Hindu or Sikh faith. Daesh swept across northern and central Iraq in 2014, eventually seizing a third of the country. Iraqi forces backed by a US-led coalition eventually drove the militants from all the territory under their control in a grueling three-year campaign. The militants are still carrying out insurgent-