Iraq: 44 Indians held in captivity by IS militants
Latest ground reports from Iraq indicate that no less than 44 Indians are being held in captivity by Islamic State terrorists including 39 labourers from Punjab, two of whom were apparently sighted in ISIS held Mosul last week.
Latest ground reports from Iraq indicate that no less than 44 Indians are being held in captivity by Islamic State terrorists including 39 labourers from Punjab, two of whom were apparently sighted in ISIS held Mosul last week. The Punjab construction labourers were abducted by ISIS fighters on June 16 with Indian government making all efforts to get them released.
South Block sources told Hindustan Times on condition of anonymity that messages from Indian embassy in Iraq indicate that there was strong possibility that the ISIS held Indians were still alive and held in a cement factory in the outskirts of Mosul. This input is corroborated with
Indian intelligence who has also picked up signs from its sources on ground including Sunni religious authorities that there was still hope for the captives. “ We are told that apart from a few who have fallen ill, the Indian are still in custody of the ISIS. Two of the Arabic speaking Punjab labourers were identified by sources on ground but there was no perfect match on the basis of photographs as the Indians had grown beards in captivity,” said a South Block official.
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While Narendra Modi government has knocked doors of Iraq, Kurdish, Saudi, Qatari and Turkish authorities to secure the release of Indian hostages, barring stray sightings and intercepts, there is no conclusive proof of the captives being alive as there have been no negotiations or ransom demands from the captors.
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While Narendra Modi government has knocked doors of Iraq, Kurdish, Saudi, Qatari and Turkish authorities to secure the release of Indian hostages, barring stray sightings and intercepts, there is no conclusive proof of the captives being alive as there have been no negotiations or ransom demands from the captors.
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The mobiles of the majority of the labourers have been switched off since June 16 evening with some two phones now with new Bangladeshi owners who were picked up with Punjab labourers but later let off by ISIS on the same day.
To add to the Indian confusion is the statement of Gurdaspur resident Harjit Singh Masih, who managed to escape ISIS custody under mysterious circumstances on the same day with minor injuries. Masih, who perhaps converted to Islam to escape certain death at the hands of ISIS, has told Indian authorities that the Punjab labourers were killed by Sunni terrorists on June 16.
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With no recovery of Indian bodies in the ISIS held Mosul and Masih’s story showing discrepancies, New Delhi has no options but to keep its hopes alive.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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