Waiting for Iraq's nod to bring back mortal remains: MoS V.K. Singh

Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs General (Retd) V.K. Singh said that the legal procedures of obtaining the mortal remains of the 39 Indians killed in Iraq has been completed and New Delhi was waiting for Baghdad to give the green signal.

"As soon as we get a nod from Baghdad ambassador, we will leave with a C-17 plane to bring back the mortal remains with due honours. We will handover the mortal remains to their families." They will not have to come to the airport," General Singh told ANI.

"After visiting Baghdad to retrieve the bodies, we will then fly to Amritsar, where we will hand over the bodies of 27 people from Punjab and four bodies from Himachal Pradesh to the families there. Then, we will go to Kolkata to handover the two bodies there. And in Patna, we will hand over the remaining bodies," he explained.

General Singh is scheduled to leave Iraq to retrieve the bodies of 39 Indians there on April 1.

On March 20, External Affairs Minister (EAM) Sushma Swaraj informed the Rajya Sabha members in the Parliament that the 39 Indian nationals, who went missing in Mosul in 2014, were killed by the terror outfit Islamic State (IS).

The 39 persons, most of whom hailed from Punjab, were working on projects near Mosul when they were kidnapped.

--ANI

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