External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said that her government left no stone unturned to find the 39 Indians, now confirmed killed by the Islamic State, since 2014. She said that reason behind informing the Parliament before informing the kin of the deceased is because of a procedure to inform the House.

“The reason why I informed the parliament about the deaths before the families is because procedure dictates that the House is informed first if the session is on,” she said at a press conference held in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Responding to a question on why Harjit Masih’s statement was not accepted, she said that “he is an individual whose statement could not have been taken as an official version”.

“He is an individual, we are a government. He can say that the men were killed but the responsibility is of the government to confirm and not issue a statement till strong evidence is obtained,” she said.

Read More: Here is what lone-survivor Harjit Masih had claimed

“We didn’t keep anyone in the dark,” the EAM said adding that she had twice stated in the Parliament that she won’t pronounce them dead till proof.

“Declaring them dead without proof is a sin and irresponsible for any government,” she said adding, “It is the responsibility of the government not to declare anyone dead till evidence confirms the same. This government doesn’t believe in ‘missing believed to be killed’.”

She said that there is no information on how and when the men were killed.

“It doesn’t matter when they were killed because recovery of the body would have been impossible till Mosul was liberated,” she said.

Swaraj told the media that MoS VK Singh was sent to Iraq on 10 July 2017, a day after Mosul’s liberation from the control of Islamic State.

“I think that India will be the first country to bring back home its citizens killed in Iraq,” she said.

The EAM said that bodies were not found among lakhs as was being claimed but in a mound near Mosul.

“These bodies were not found in mass graves but in a mound. A man informed Singh that many bodies were buried in a mound in Badush,” she said adding that India then asked Iraq to use deep penetration radar to confirm the man’s claim.

Badush is a village located northwest of Mosul. Following confirmation, the bodies were exhumed and sent for DNA confirmation.

“There were exactly 39 bodies. Some of them had long hairs and we recovered a kada – indicating that the bodies were of the Sikhs in the group,” Swaraj said.

Martyrs Foundation, an Iraqi government body dealing with people killed in the fight against the IS which had been given DNA samples of the family members of the Indians, confirmed that 38 of them matched completely. There was one body – that of Raju Yadav from Bihar – whose DNA matched 70 per cent because his parents were no more and the DNA supplied was of a relative.

“The press conference of Martyrs Foundation in Iraq was to be held at Indian time at 1.30 pm today. I wanted to let the nation know from the EAM first,” Swaraj said.

She said that she was witness to the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi did raise the issue of the Indians with all the nations who could help India in the bilateral meetings held with them.

“I spoke to the foreign ministers of the respective countries including Turkey for any information on the 39 Indians,” she said.

Swaraj said that of the 39 Indians, 27 are from Punjab, 4 are from Himachal Pradesh, 6 are from Bihar and 2 are from West Bengal.

Read More: Bodies of 39 Indians killed in Iraq will be brought back in special aircraft: Swaraj

She also slammed the Congress for causing disruption in the Lok Sabha when she was trying to inform the House of the development.

Meanwhile, Najiha Abdul-Amir al-Shimari, head of Iraq’s Martyrs Foundation, condemned the “heinous crime” carried out by “Daesh” – the Arabic acronym of the Islamic State.

The bodies are “citizens of the friendly Indian state. Their dignity was supposed to be protected, but the forces of evil wanted to defame the principles of Islam,” said Najiha.

The abducted workers, most from northern India, had been employed by a construction company near Mosul when militants captured wide swaths of the area.

Relatives said they received phone calls from some of the workers five days after Mosul was captured, asking for help.

Members of the family of Aman Kumar have said that they received a call from officials today in the morning informing them of the death of the Himachal Pradesh native.