However, Swaraj on July 16 had told family members that their abducted kin were lodged in a jail in Badush in northwest of Mosul.
A week after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj rekindled hopes of families of 39 Indians abducted in Iraq by the ISIS three years ago, her visiting Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Eshaiker al-Jaafari said his country has no "substantial evidence" on their whereabouts.
However, Swaraj on July 16 had told family members that their abducted kin were lodged in a jail in Badush in northwest of Mosul.
She was quoting information received from the Iraqi intelligence sources gathered by her deputy General VK Singh, who had met Kurdish leaders in Erbil and Iraqi leaders, including foreign minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, deputy foreign minister Nazar Khairallah, national security adviser Faleh Al-Fayad and the secretary-general of Iraq's council of ministers, Mahdi al-Alaq in Baghdad. But on Monday, Iraqi foreign minister told Swaraj that his government has no substantive information.
He, however, assured that his country was "making the best efforts" to find out about their whereabouts. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who began a five-day India visit on Monday, held extensive talks with Swaraj.
"We don't know whether they are dead or alive. We are equally concerned. There is no substantial evidence whether they are alive or not. We are making the best efforts," he told reporters. Media report from Badush had also suggested that the jail was an abandoned structure.
Swaraj is likely to make a detailed statement in Parliament on Tuesday about her meeting with her Iraqi counterpart. In the talks, Swaraj and al-Jaafari decided to take steps to boost cooperation in areas of education, trade, energy and healthcare, official sources said. The volume of bilateral trade in 2016-17 was nearly $13 billion. Iraq contributes significantly to India's energy security and is the second largest supplier of crude oil to India in 2016-17 with a total volume of over 37 MMT. The Iraqi foreign minister also met Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Meanwhile, Congress is planning to submit a privilege motion against Swaraj in both Houses for "misleading the nation, parliament and families" of the kidnapped Indians. Alleging that Swaraj had "lost all credibility", Partap Singh Bajwa, an MP from Punjab said that the minister had lied that they are in a jail. The labourers, mostly from Punjab, were taken hostage by ISIS when it overran Iraq's second largest city Mosul in 2014. The workers were trying to leave Mosul when they were intercepted.
Earlier, Iraqi Ambassador to India Fakhri H Al-Issa had also said that the his country has no information about the missing Indians. "I don't want to say anything. I have no information. Sometimes no news is good news. They might be in Badush prison," Issa said. But Swaraj had assured that "once fighting stops in Badush and the area is cleared, we can probably find out about the whereabouts of the missing nationals."
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