Adding insult to injury: District admin asks relatives to collect bodies of missing Indians based on wrong info

Already reeling under the blow of having learnt of the deaths of their loved ones, families of two Balachaur youths, who were among 39 Indians massacred in Iraq, today underwent another shocking ordeal when the Nawanshahr district administration made them reach the Amritsar airport to collect bodies on the basis of incorrect information.

As a result of the fiasco, family members of the two youth reached at the airport, while the rest of the kin waited at home to receive the bodies, which did not arrive.

Singnificantly, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had told the Rajya Sabha in New Delhi yesterday that Union Minister V K Singh would go to Iraq on a special flight to get the bodies.

However, a letter on March 20, issued by Nawanshahr Deputy Commissioner Amit Kumar said the bodies of Parvinder Kumar, resident of Jagatpur, and Jasveer Singh of Mehindpur, both in Balachaur, would be arriving at the Amritsar airport on March 21 at 10 am.

Grief-stricken family members of the two deceased youth arrived only to find the information was incorrect.

"Two senior officials, an XEN of Powercom and a police inspector, were deputed to bring the bodies in specially arranged ambulances", the letter had said.

The district administration had also asked the family members of both the deceased to accompany the officials in the ambulances.

Kashmir Singh, a maternal uncle of Parvinder Kumar and Jyoti, elder brother of Jasveer Singh, went to Amritsar along with the official team today.

However, to the utter disappointment of the deceased Indians, the airport officials told them they had no information regarding the arrival of bodies.

"This caused a disappointment in us as before leaving for Amritsar we had informed all our relatives and others that that we would be cremating the bodies today. Many of our relatives had started pouring in the early morning itself," said Kashmir Singh while talking to PTI.

Jyoti too echoed similar feelings.

"Earlier, the Union government kept on lying to us for four years about the safety of our youth, today the district administration lied on the issue", he lamented.

Deputy Commissioner Kumar said arrangements to bring the bodies were made in "good faith" following a telephonic message from the office of DC Amritsar.

"However, some kind of mis-communication happened resulting in the entire fiasco," he said. Nothing was done with ill intentions, he said. "Rather, we wanted to extend all help to the unfortunate families," he said.