All 39 Indians, kidnapped by the ISIS in Iraq’s Mosul in 2014, have been killed and their bodies recovered, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announced in Parliament on Tuesday, shattering the hopes of their near and dear ones to see them alive again.

‘’With a heavy heart, I wish to announce that 39 Indians missing in Iraq since June 2014 are dead,’’ she said in a choked voice at a press conference here, hours after making a suo motu statement in the Rajya Sabha about the brutal killings.

Swaraj said she had made a firm commitment to the nation that the government would spare no effort to trace the missing Indians and would not declare them dead without concrete proof to this effect. ‘’It would have been a sin to declare them killed on the basis of unverified reports or hearsay,’’ she said in an obvious reference to the government’s criticism on why it had been assuring the relatives of the dead that they could be alive.

Of the dead, 27 were from Punjab, four from Himachal Pradesh, six from Bihar and two from West Bengal, the minister said. All of them were construction workers employed by an Iraqi company in Mosul.

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The minister said the bodies of these people were exhumed from a mound in Badush in Iraq using deep penetration radar. Asked how India was certain about the identify of these Indians when there were hundreds of bodies in the area, she said this particular grave in Badush had exactly 39 bodies with distinctive features like long hair. In fact, one ‘kara’ (bracelet worn by Sikhs) was also recovered from the spot.

The bodies were sent to Baghdad for DNA testing. The DNA testing by Martyrs Foundation, an Iraq-based NGO, had established the identity of 38 Indians while there had been 70 per cent matching of the DNA for the 39th person, who appeared to be Raju Kumar Yadav from Bihar, Swaraj said.

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The workers were taken hostage by Islamic State militants when they took control of the second largest city in Iraq in 2014. They were trying to leave Mosul when they were captured by the militants.

Minister of State for External Affairs Gen (Retd) V K Singh had visited Iraq, days after Mosul was liberated by Iraqi forces from the rule of Islamic State. Singh is set to travel to Iraq again in a special aircraft to bring the mortal remains of the dead Indians back to the country. It would take a few more days before all the formalities in connection with bringing their mortal remains were completed.

Swaraj had met the relatives of the missing Indians from time to time during the last four years and gave them hope that they could be alive. Last year, she had told the families of the missing Indians that an Iraqi official had told her deputy V K Singh that the Indians were made to work at a hospital construction site and then shifted to a farm before they were thrown into a jail in Badush.

Another Indian, Harjit Masih from Gurdaspur, who too had been kidnapped, had managed to escape from the custody of the militants by posing as a Muslim from Bangladesh and return to India. He had claimed at that time that he had been a witness to the killings of other Indians who were kidnapped along with him. However, the government had dismissed his claim.