Shocked families wait to hear from govt

PATNA: At least five of the 39 Indians killed in Iraq were from Bihar.

Two of them, Santosh and

Bidya

were from Sahsraon village in Siwan district, sources said. They had gone to Iraq in 2011 to work.

“My brother and Bidya worked at a construction firm in Iraq. He was loved by everyone in the village. We last spoke over phone on June 12, 2014,” Santosh’s brother Pappu Singh told TOI on Tuesday, adding that families were yet to receive communication from the foreign ministry.

Santosh is survived by his parents, a brother and a sister. “I met external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj 11 times. She always told us the Indians were taken hostage and being made to work forcefully,” Pappu said.

Bidya’s uncle Puroshottam Tiwari is inconsolable. “Since 2014, I had been pleading with the government to bring him back and today they say he is no more,” he said. Bidya is survived by his wife, two children and mother.

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