Iraq kidnap test for Modi.... Iraq hostage dialled home: Sister Talk of handover to ‘some other authority’

CHARU SUDAN KASTURI, TT, New Delhi, June 18: India is counting almost solely on a global humanitarian agency to track down 40 nationals abducted in Iraq by militants, hobbled by the limitations of its stretched diplomatic establishment in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s biggest foreign policy test yet.

Iraq’s Red Crescent – as the International Red Cross is known in Islamic nations – is leading the search for the Indian construction workers captured by gunmen in the northern city of Mosul that has been seized by an al Qaida splinter group.

The ministry of external affairs, which confirmed the kidnappings on Wednesday afternoon, said it was unclear who was behind the abductions that the government was unaware of till late yesterday when the Red Crescent informed the Indian embassy in Baghdad.

But the president of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, Yaseen Ahmad Abbas, told The Telegraph that his agency was convinced the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the terror group that has grabbed large chunks of Iraq’s territory in lightning strikes over the past 10 days, is responsible.

“It can be no other group – they (the ISIS) control the area,” Abbas said in an interview over phone from Baghdad. “We hope to be able to find, by tomorrow, some trace of the Indians.”

The workers -- employed by Baghdad-based firm Tariq Noor Al Huda Co. – were working at the Mosul Stadium, a popular football venue in Iraq’s second-largest city, when they were abducted, Abbas said.

In Punjab, the sister of a youth who is among the 40 hostages said her brother had called her on Sunday to say that he and several others had been kidnapped and their captors were planning to hand them over to “some other authority”. It was not clear how he could make the phone call while being held captive. His sister has not been able to reach him since.

The abductions have thrust Indian diplomacy into the middle of an exploding civil war in Iraq that New Delhi would rather follow from the sidelines. India issued its first statement on the Iraq crisis only on Monday, even though over 100 nationals were trapped in the central Iraq region where the ISIS has gained territory from the Iraqi army over the past week.

“It is with deep, deep sadness that we would like to inform you that 40 Indian workers in Mosul have been kidnapped,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said on Wednesday afternoon.

The Indian government and embassy, Akbaruddin said, have not received any phone call from any organisation either claiming responsibility for the abductions or demanding ransom. The ISIS is known to capture civilians as an extortion tool to fund its terror raids.

Former Indian ambassador to Iraq Suresh Reddy, who ended his term there just earlier this year, flew to Baghdad tonight to assist current ambassador Ajay Kumar in coordinating evacuation and search efforts. Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj spoke with relatives of some of the kidnapping victims, Akbaruddin said. National security adviser Ajit Doval also met senior foreign ministry officials to discuss the abductions.

But the foreign ministry refused to share any further details – suggesting instead that much about the abductions remained unclear and hinting that its own source of information was primarily humanitarian agencies working in Iraq.

For Prime Minister Modi, who came to power on a campaign that pitched him as a strong, decisive leader not just domestically but in international relations, handling the abductions will pose a challenge because of India’s limited intelligence resources in Iraq.

Till Wednesday night, India did not even know exactly how many of its nationals – both those abducted and those merely stranded -- were trapped in the regions seized by the ISIS.

India issues a special category of passports known as the ECR (emigration check required) stamped passports specifically for vulnerable nationals travelling abroad, particularly to West Asia, for work. Those with ECR-marked passports undergo an extra check from Indian immigration officials at the airport when they leave India.

But this helps the government keep track of travel plans only of those with these special passports -- anyone with even a matriculation degree is not deemed vulnerable enough for the passport. And many Indians already have non-ECR passports before they decide to travel abroad for work.

At last count, Akbaruddin said, India had about 10,000 nationals in Iraq – a figure different from the number of 18,000 officials had cited earlier. Of these 10,000, about 6,000 are in the northern region known as Kurdistan, controlled by an autonomous government still in charge, the foreign office spokesperson said.

Another 3,000 Indians are in Baghdad, Basra and other parts of southern Iraq that remain under the control of the government in Baghdad.

These Indians – in Kurdistan and in the south -- are safe, Akbaruddin said, adding though that around 200 nationals south of Baghdad had indicated they would like to return to India. The Indian embassy, he said, is speaking with their employers to facilitate their return, likely by Friday.

Akbaruddin said the Indian government estimated that a little over 100 nationals are in the region between Kurdistan and Baghdad witnessing the worst battles between the Iraq army and the ISIS.

Of these, 46 nurses are stranded in Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraq ruler Saddam Hussein that is barely 70km from Baghdad. Many of these nurses, who have spoken to Indian embassy officials and to the Red Crescent, have indicated they would like to stay back in Iraq.

The Red Crescent and the Indian embassy have also advised them to stay in Tikrit, as roads from the city to Baghdad are witnessing some of the worst gunfights between the militants and the Iraq army.

But it is the struggle to trace the kidnapped Indians that is most testing India’s foreign policy establishment. Till they are found, it cannot begin negotiations with the kidnappers for the release of the victims.

Although India has built strong diplomatic ties with leaders across communities in Iraq, it has no contacts with the more extreme sections of the rebels who have coalesced to form the ISIS, multiple officials confirmed. An overstretched foreign service – the city-state of Singapore has more professional diplomats – hasn’t helped in developing deeper contacts in several other countries too.

“No one knows where our kidnapped nationals were taken, or where they are right now,” Indian ambassador to Iraq Ajay Kumar told The Telegraph today evening.

The Iraqi Red Crescent has offices in Mosul, Tikrit, and other parts of Iraq grabbed by the ISIS militants, Abbas, the organisation’s president said. It is the Red Crescent volunteers in Mosul – drawn from the local population – who alerted Abbas and his colleagues about the kidnappings.

The humanitarian agency plans to use its network of volunteers to hunt for any information available from the local community in Mosul to try and track down the missing Indians and their abductors.

“But the violence complicates the search,” Abbas said. “It will not be easy but we are hopeful.” 
GAJINDER SINGH, TT, Chandigarh, June 18: Manjinder Singh had spoken to his sister Gurvinder last Sunday to tell her he had been abducted, but she has been unable to reach him on phone since and appealed to the Centre today to trace him and get him home. The 24-year-old from an Amritsar village had gone to Iraq 11 months ago in search of work. He is among the 40 Indian construction workers taken hostage from Mosul, where they were working at a football stadium. 
“Manjinder’s voice sounded scared when he called to inform that he and some of the others from Amritsar had been taken into custody by insurgents. He said his abductors wanted to hand everyone to some other authority to ensure they were not harmed,” Gurvinder said from her village Bhoewal, where she teaches in a primary school. Her brother had gone to the war zone because “he was not getting a suitable job here”. He wanted to help the family, which owns a small plot and is in debt, with a regular income. Their father is ailing.
“He was scared. But he told me not to worry. He, however, lamented that the construction firm he was working for had fled the site and taken everyone’s documents with them,” Gurvinder said.
It was not clear how Manjinder had been able to telephone his family after being taken captive.
Television channel CNN-IBN quoted the relative of another kidnapped worker as saying he too had called. “He was crying on the phone when we spoke on Sunday. The kidnappers are giving food to the victims. They are keeping them in a cotton factory,” the channel quoted a cousin of Charanjit Singh as saying.
“We appeal to the government to trace everyone and bring them back,” said Gurvinder, who is in touch with families of several others kidnapped who are also from Amritsar district.
Most, if not all, of the 40 Indians kidnapped from Iraq’s second largest city are from Punjab, a state from where at least 20,000 youths migrate abroad every year, a large number of them illegally.

The mother of Manjinder Singh and the family members of Sonu, both feared to be trapped in Iraq’s
Mosul, show their photographs in Amritsar on Wednesday. (PTI)

“There are no jobs available in Punjab and youths are willing to go anywhere in the world to work to earn money, no matter how dangerous. In Iraq, they mostly work for construction companies, many as labourers. Many board flights to unknown destinations and land in the hands of human sharks who trade them for profit. There is no government policy in Punjab that can give them jobs and make them stay back,” said historian Gurdial Singh Dhillon.
In 2004, three migrant workers from Punjab, Antaryami, Sukhdev and Tilak Raj, were abducted in Iraq. In 2011, 15 youths, duped by unscrupulous travel agents, returned from Baghdad to recount their chilling experience. But this has not deterred others pursuing the dream of a better future. 
Most who go to Iraq work as masons, drivers and carpenters. The 40 abducted in Mosul, among them 15-16 from Amritsar district alone, are construction workers.
“To others, Punjab may sound to be prosperous state but the ground realities are different. Jobs even for skilled workers are dwindling and the youths have no other option but to fall prey to travel agents who take them to Dubai and push them into Iraq. Their travel documents, too, are snatched from them and many live in horrible conditions,” Dhillon said.
Many sell or mortgage ancestral land, pawn jewellery and force family members to take loans to be able to go abroad in search of a better life.
“What do we earn from labouring in the agricultural fields? At the most Rs 150 daily? Abroad, we can earn up to Rs 1 lakh a month. The youth are ready to pay any price for that,” said Harjeet Singh, who returned after three years working as a carpenter in Dubai.
Nurses stranded
Sixty-one nurses from Kerala are stuck in Iraq’s conflict zone, according to the state department for Non-resident Keralite Affairs (NORKA).

Delhi residents at a candle light demonstration at Jantan Mantar over the Iraq crisis. (PTI)

“We have information on 61 nurses from Kerala in some of Iraq’s disturbed areas — 42 in Tikrit and 19 in Diyala,” NORKA chief executive officer P. Sudeep said, adding that no one had the exact numbers so there could be more.
“The 61 referred to is based on the number of calls that we received at the 24x7 assistance centre that we opened for the distressed nurses and their families,” he explained. The Centre said there were 46 nurses stranded in Tikrit.
No nurse from Kerala was reported to have been hurt in the blast in the Bakuba hospital in Diyala, he said.
Sudeep said he had spoken to some of the nurses and learnt that they were mostly holed up in the hospitals. Red Crescent volunteers had reached the hospitals and distributed food and water. Their residential quarters are some distance away from the hospitals, but travel was not a safe option as of now.
Evacuation would be possible only when the road to the airport was negotiable, Sudeep said. Reports reaching here pointed to the presence of ISIS militants on the highways and it was impossible to evacuate the nurses while the militants stayed put, he said.
Chief minister Oommen Chandy has said his office was closely monitoring the situation. Replying to questions in the Assembly yesterday, minister for NORKA K.C. Joseph had said he had information on 44 nurses stranded in Tikrit.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT IN THIRUVANANTHAPURAM