Amidst the tension over securing safe homecoming of Indian workers, including Punjabis, the Punjab State Commission for NRIs has stepped in on Thursday. The Commission, taking suo motu cognizance of the various news items regarding 40 Indians abducted in Iraq and panic gripping their families in Punjab, has asked the Union Ministry of External Affairs and Union Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs to “immediately on receipt of this order, may apprise the latest details of the rescue operations and any results thereof to this Commission”. Maintaining that the commission has been set up “for the welfare and safeguarding NRIs interests”, the Commission’s chairman Justice (retd) Arvind Kumar also asked PUnjab Home Secretary or the state Director General of Police (DGP) “to coordinate with the district authorities to contact the families of those kidnapped in Iraq and then to apprise them of the latest developments”. Besides, the Commission has recommended to the Punjab Government “to assign or depute a senior officer for such coordination with the Central Ministries to get latest inputs to be apprised to the aggrieved families back home”. “The responsibility is shouldered on us also to coordinate and pursue such relief or rescue operations that have already been undertaken,” asserted Justice Kumar. The Commission, pointing that the UN Security Council (UNSC) on many occasions has already highlighted suffering of innocent civilians in Iraq, stated that it is high time that the Council should also “intervene in this matter and take appropriate steps”. “We expect the report or interim report from the Central Ministries within the next 10 days. A copy of this order may be sent to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Organisation by the External Affairs Ministry through the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations,” stated the order, fixing June 30 as the next date of hearing.