Harjit Masih, the lone survivor who had managed to flee from ISIS captivity in Iraq in June 2014 following his kidnapping along with 39 other Indians there, on Tuesday said he had been maintaining for the past three years that all others had been killed.
“I had been saying for the past three years that all 39 Indians had been killed (by ISIS terrorists),” Masih said, adding that his stand has been vindicated. “I had spoken the truth,” asserted Masih, resident of Kala Afghana village in Gurdaspur district.
His statement came after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday informed the Parliament that all 39 Indian workers were killed and their bodies had been recovered.
Masih said they were killed in front of his eyes and he had been saying all these years, wondering why the Government was not accepting what he had said earlier.
Claiming that the Government did not make the deaths public due to political reasons, Masih also said that the case against him should be withdrawn.
A case was lodged against Masih after families of the “missing” 39 Indians registered a complaint on the directions of the Ministry of External Affairs. The MEA had then alleged that Masih had cooked up the story of the 39 Indians being killed. Masih is currently out on bail and working as a daily wager.