Sir — Nobody can deny that if the management of foreign affairs has notched up a single success under the stewardship of Sushma Swaraj, it has been when repatriating/assisting Indians caught in troubles in West Asia. And it would be churlish not to recognise its efforts to trace the 39 workers who were slaughtered by the Islamic State after it captured Mosul. However, no word of compassion can compensate the families for their loss. They will now have to wait for time to heal the wounds.
The Government really had no choice but to hope for the best in the absence of any real evidence to corroborate the deaths. To its credit, the Government made all efforts to find out what happened to the 39 people, including sending officials to visit prisons and other sites where they could possibly have been held. Given that the search — futile as it turned out in the end — was on, it was still not possible to pronounce the hostages dead.
The magnitude of the tragedy is such that it ill behoves politicians trying to extract mileage from it. No one could have predicted this nor could anyone have done anything more than was done to ascertain their whereabouts.