Date: Mar 21, 2018 Source: The Daily Star Iraq recovers bodies of 39 Indians abducted by Daesh Associated Press BAGHDAD: The dirt mound in the dry hills outside the village of Badush was known as a place where Daesh (ISIS) militants had buried some of their enemies after they overran much of northern Iraq nearly four years ago. But it was only when Iraqi authorities began digging last summer that the identity of the victims became clear. They found the bodies of men with long black hair and silver bracelets known as karas that are worn by followers of the Sikh religion. India’s foreign minister Tuesday confirmed the mass grave contains the bodies of 39 Indian construction workers abducted shortly after the area fell to the extremists. Iraqi and Indian authorities said 38 of the bodies had been positively identified through DNA analysis. All were Indian, and all had been shot, many in the head. Daesh likely killed them for their religious beliefs. While authorities have not said when they believed the group was killed, the bodies were badly decomposed and had clearly been buried for a long time, Iraq’s forensic director, Zaid Ali Abbas, told the Associated Press. He also described how the men had been shot. The workers, most from northern India, had been employed by a construction company operating near the northern city of Mosul. Around 10,000 Indians lived and worked in Iraq at the time. In the first days after Mosul was captured, their relatives back in India began to receive panicked phone calls, with the men begging for help. Dozens of mass graves have been discovered in territory once held by Daesh, though Iraq’s government has only been able to examine a handful of them. Iraqi officials say they lack the resources and trained personnel to properly exhume so many sites. Search operations led to the mound of dirt near Badush, where local residents said bodies had been buried by Daesh, Swaraj said in Parliament. Forty Indians were captured by the militants, though one man managed to escape. Harjit Masih, the only Indian survivor, has long said the rest of the group had been killed. He said they had all been held for a number of days, then taken outside and ordered to kneel. Then the militants opened fire. “They were killed in front of my eyes,” he told reporters Tuesday in his north Indian village. He was shot in the thigh but managed to escape. Iraq, which is in the midst of an economic crisis, is also struggling to rebuild after more than three years of grueling war against the militants. The fight against Daesh has cost Iraq more than $1 billion in destroyed infrastructure, officials say.