The Opposition including Congress and some other parties on Wednesday expressed concern in the Rajya Sabha over the fate of 39 missing Indian nationals in Iraq for the last three years and urged the Government to inform Parliament about them. Most of the missing persons belong to Punjab and were reportedly kidnapped by the ISIS in 2014 and the Government has so far maintained they are alive.
Issues like exemption to Tamil Nadu students from National Entrance and Eligibility Test(NEET) for medical course, scourge of manual scavenging and hiking the salaries of MPs were also flagged in the House.
Raising the matter of missing Indians during the Zero Hour, Pratap Singh Bajwa(Congress) said they were yet to be traced. Mentioning that several delegations from Punjab had repeatedly met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to inquire about the missing persons, he said one person who managed to escape then claimed that all other captives were shot dead.
The Government, however, maintained that the Indians were alive and most probably held captive in Mosul, one of the strongholds of ISIS, the Congress leader said. After Mosul was freed from the ISIS by the Iraqi forces some days back, the Indian Government was now claiming that the Indians were taken to a jail in Badush, 30 km away from Mosul, he said.
Referring to the visit of Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh to Iraq recently after Mosul was freed, Bajwa suggested that the Government should have sent an all-party delegation along with the Minister and "ensure that those people are either brought in or their parents and relatives should be told that they are no longer alive." He also urged the Government not to mislead the country and Parliament. His party colleagues and some MPs from other Opposition parties associated themselves with Bajwa's plea.
All parties from Tamil Nadu joined hands to demand complete exemption of the state's students from NEET, alleging bias against them in the examination.
Members of AIADMK and DMK also stormed into the well of the house for a brief period to register their protest.
In an effort to pacify them, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar and Health Minister J P Nadda said the Government was fully apprised of the sentiments of the people of the state. While Javadekar said the issue was under examination and sub judice, Nadda said the Government had sent its recommendations to the President. Tamil Nadu assembly had passed a bill seeking complete exemption from NEET and sought the President's assent.
Naresh Agrawal(SP) demanded that the Government should clarify its stand on hiking salaries and allowances of MPs. He also said general impression was that the MPs were enjoying many benefits adding their salaries were less than the Secretary level officers in the government. Backing his contention, Anand Sharma(Congress) said the salaries of MPs should be higher than the senior most officer in the Government.
Ali Anwar Ansari(JD-U) asked the government to take immediate steps to stop the practice of manual scavenging which was continuing despite a ban on it.