Is it just the so-called Stockholm syndrome or a right observation of the situation that is making the 46 Indian nurses who were on Saturday brought back home safely from war-ravaged Iraq defend the ISIS insurgents in whose captivity they were in Tikrit and who had taken them through burning battlefields to Mosul before releasing them on FridayIJ
Every nurse in the group is still all praise for the ISIS men and is furious towards the use by mediamen and others of words like militants, extremists and terrorists to refer to them. “There was no occasion to view them as terrorists or extremists. They acted with humaneness and interacted with us just like our brothers would do,” said a nurse.
Even as the nurses continued to defend the militants, there were reports suggesting that the militants had no other option but to behave well with the Indians because the ISIS was under immense pressure exerted by New Delhi through influential channels.“They were decent gentlemen. When they told us that the Tikrit hospital building was going to be bombed, they added that we were not their target and they had no intention of harming us as we were Indians. They had been providing us with food and other facilities without a grumble,” nurse Neenu said.
“The only time we felt a bit suspicious about them was when they compelled us to board the buses from Tikrit to Mosul. When some of us hesitated, they fired at the building. We soon understood that it was meant only to scare us so that we would board the bus. On the way to Mosul also, they behaved like decent gentlemen,” said Neenu, belonging to Kottayam district.
A Kochi-based psychologist suggested that the nurses’ good opinion about the ISIS militants could be the result of the Stockholm syndrome, in which hostages developed sympathy and empathy for their captors during the course of captivity. “It can happen in several hours or days. The nurses’ attitude also could be something like that,” he said.
In Stockholm syndrome, hostages can defend their captors and even identify themselves with them. Studies show that hostages have showed signs of the syndrome in a majority of hostage dramas. The syndrome’s name was derived from a five-day-long robbery-hostage drama in Stockholm, Sweden in 1973 in which the hostages became emotionally attached to the captors.
However, the nurses are rejecting this suggestion emphatically saying that there was no real occasion for them to develop such a syndrome as there was no constant physical presence of the militants in their living quarters. “Also, we were not in captivity of anyone in the strictest sense of that term,” said another nurse.
According to Neenu, the ISIS men had been decent to them not only in Tikrit but in Mosul also. “In Mosul, we were first put in a dark room with no facilities. But in minutes, they themselves carried beds for us into the room, fixed the air-conditioner, gave us food and reassured us of our safety. None of them had even been looking at our faces,” she said.
“When we express gratitude for our safe return, we should do it first to the new Government in Mosul. We had reached Iraq during the reign of the “old Government” but it was the new Government which took care of us since June 10. The only thing they had not been able to do for us is to pay our outstanding salaries,” she added.
Another nurse said that the decent behaviour of the militants during the eight-hour trip from Tikrit to Mosul had surprised them. “We never thought that these men would be our saviours. But that is how it happened. They stopped the vehicle wherever we wanted. They allowed us to make ourselves comfortable and gave us water, biscuits and food,” she said.