SHARJAH, 28 April 2004 — Indian officials and diplomats New Delhi, Iraq and Jordan yesterday dismissed as unfounded a report which said five Keralites had gone “missing” in Iraq as even it was reported that another group of Indian workers were expected to leave the war-torn country soon.
The Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi, Indian Ambassador to Iraq B.B. Tyagi and Kuldeep Singh, the Indian charge d’affaires at the Indian Embassy in Amman, denied that any statement was made saying that five Keralites were missing in Iraq.
“I have been misquoted,” said Kuldeep Singh, who was quoted as the source of the report. “I have not said anything like this and this report is totally inaccurate and unfounded,” Singh said over the phone when reached in Amman from Sharjah. The report was carried by a UAE-based Malayalam newspaper which had apparently contacted Kuldeep Singh in Amman.
Singh said “no comment” to all further questions about Indians leaving Iraq passing through Jordan. “You can talk to the Gulf division” of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi, he said.
Tyagi also said he had no information that any Indian was missing in the war-torn country and that a group of Indians was expected to leave Iraq soon amidst the security crisis there fuelled by guerrilla attacks against the US-led occupation forces.
“I am expecting a group of Indians to come to the (Indian) embassy (in Baghdad) today,” Tyagi said, adding that the Indians wanted consular services to be rendered to them — like renewal of passports - before they could leave the country.
Tyagi said he did not have details of the Indians. In the absence of contacts with Indians who are said to be living in camps, some of them in highly security-sensitive areas, there was no definite way for anyone outside to know where they were living and whether anyone was killed, wounded or missing.
Tyagi said some Indians had left already. Almost all of them, he said, left on their own, with passage home provided either by their employers. “It is not a case of embassy-arranged repatriation,” he said over the phone from his office when reached from Sharjah. “Those who want to leave and need consular help, like renewal of passport, approach the embassy and we do the needful,” he said.
“Those who want to leave are leaving on their own and those prefer to stay back are staying on.”
All who choose to leave the country use the 1,000-kilometre land route from Baghdad to Amman from where they fly home. Those in the south could use the route through Kuwait.
The embassy in Baghdad does not have any record of the Indians present in Iraq since none of them had contacted the mission when they landed there.
However, a rough estimate based on an independent assessment given by other sources in Iraq showed that there were around 1,100 Indian workers in Iraq. However, said Tyagi, “We really do not know how many Indians are in Iraq. We would come to know of their presence here only when they contact us
Several knowledgeable sources elsewhere in Iraq said they were not aware of any Indian being kidnapped or killed in the ongoing crisis.
One source said there were at least two camps near the northern city of Mosul where Indians were known to be living, but the security situation there was largely calm since the north is under the control of the US-allied Kurds.
