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Hope for a better future had taken Indians to Mosul. Now, their families have none left

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Most of those killed by the IS belonged to landless families, and had taken loans far beyond their means to be able to go abroad to work.

New Delhi: Behind the killings of 39 Indians by the Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq, lie tales of abject poverty and the eternal human hope for a better future.

Forty Indians were originally abducted by the terrorist organisation in June 2014 from Mosul. Only one of them, Harjit Masih, was able to escape by posing as a Muslim from Bangladesh.

ThePrint spoke to 13 of the victims’ families to understand what made them send their loved ones to a country ravaged by war and uncertainty.

Loans beyond their means

Most men belonged to landless families. It was only through loans, ranging from Rs 1.2 lakh to Rs 3 lakh that they were able to even reach Iraq.

The families of the men who stayed behind in Punjab are still struggling to pay off this loan after losing their primary breadwinner.

Jasbir Kaur, sister of deceased Ranjit Singh, said the family is steeped in debt; it has only been able to pay back a third of the Rs 3 lakh loan.

Others like Surinder Singh, brother-in-law of deceased Kanwaljit, say his family had to sell off its ancestral land in order to send him abroad. He was initially assured that he would be sent to Dubai, but ended up going to Iraq instead.

Surjit Maneka’s family claimed its debt had grown over the course of four years to a crippling figure of Rs 10 lakh because he had stopped sending money home.

“Because of Sushma Swaraj’s reassurances, we were not worried, because we kept thinking that he will come home and fix this,” Maneka’s brother Manjit said.

The question of money

The murdered men have left behind many mouths to feed. Many families said they were handed a token amount of Rs 20,000 by the government, but not much else. This money, too, trickled in at irregular intervals, and for some, such as Maneka’s family, it completely stopped after June 2017.

Pritpal Sharma’s eldest daughter has become very disturbed after getting the news of his demise. Her brother Niraj says: “We barely have the money to get her medicines. The government gave us Rs 20,000 over four months but nothing after that.”

Manjeet Kaur, wife of the deceased Davinder Singh, said that she had to start doing tailoring work from home to take care of her two children.

A feeling of betrayal

Most of these families were hoping that the men would come home and set right the mounting burden of the last four years.

Kaur said she had met external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj over 10 times in Delhi, and had been reassured every time that her husband would return home safely.

Swaraj had made these same assurances in Parliament, and had said the government had been given information by several sources that the men were alive and well, and were working in Mosul. As a result, several of the families have labelled it a betrayal.

Manjeet Ram lost his foster brother Nand Lal and nephew Sandeep Kumar in Mosul. He says he was betrayed twice over by the government, because he wasn’t “immediate family”.

“I raised Nand Lal after he lost his parents at a young age, but the government never gave us any compensation. And now, with the news of his death, I feel we’ve been betrayed twice over,” Ram said.

Madan Lal said his deceased brother Roop Lal was the first person from their family to have ever gone abroad, and he went “only because we were struggling to make ends meet and he wanted to ensure a comfortable life for his entire family. But now, I am left to take care of our seven sisters, his wife and two infant children. We are a broken home”.

Hardships before the end

Even before they went missing, the families say the men suffered at the hands of the company they were working for in Iraq.

Chandra Pal, grandson of Balbir Chand who was among those killed, said the company had taken away the men’s passports, making it hard for them to escape.

Jasbir Kaur said that while her brother Ranjit Singh was able to send a total of Rs 50,000 back home, the company stopped paying him sometime before he disappeared, compounding the financial crisis they are in today.

In fact, most families claim to have received money only once or twice before the kidnappings took place.

Gurdeep Singh’s sister Reena Rani said: “His son was born after he left for Iraq. The only time he was able to send money was for his son’s first lohri.”

The last phone call

Many families also recalled their last conversation with the men before they went missing.

While some men anticipated doom and asked family members to take care of their children, there were some instances where the men claimed the Islamic State was feeding them well and would even help them get their salaries.

“They told my husband that ‘we have no issues with you. We will give your passports and help you get back home. We will even help you get your salaries’,” said Manjeet Kaur.

Roop Lal, meanwhile, had made several calls home between 3 and 15 March, about three months before the men’s disappearance, saying the fight in Iraq had begun, and this time it would be difficult for him to leave.

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