India relying on network of volunteer spies to trace missing Mosul men

New Delhi’s optimism stems from the fact that the Islamic State has not publicised the executions.

Long dismissed as a fantasist by the Indian government—but kept out of view at Research and Analysis Wing safehouses in Erbil, Gurgaon, Bangalore and Noida—Harjit Masih has finally had a chance to the tell the story of how he, and at least 39 fellow workers from Punjab, were gunned down by the Islamic State outside Mosul.

His story, though, is still being rejected by the Indian government, who is instead backing testimony from a secret network of operatives working for Iraq’s Red Crescent, who say they have seen at least three of the missing men alive.

Masih’s press conference on Thursday came nine months after The Indian Express quoted high-level sources in the Kurdish government backing his account. The Kurdish sources said the missing men may have been among “many bodies” dumped in mass graves south of Mosul.

The source told The Indian Express the “workers, along with many other people were killed by Daish (Dawla Islami, or Islamic State) and their corpses were thrown into a giant deep hole in the Sahaji area”.

However, New Delhi dismissed the claims, saying it had confirmation from six different sources that the men were still alive. The government argues Masih’s testimony

New Delhi, Indian diplomatic sources have told The Indian Express, used contacts provided Iraq’s Red Crescent Society—including contractors and businessmen operating in Islamic State-held territory—to search for the missing men, using photographs provided by the Indian government. Iraqi students in India from the Mosul region were also tapped for help, the sources said, though their efforts did not yield results.

The photographs, the sources said, were obtained from the missing men’s families for the government by the Intelligence Bureau, working through the Punjab Police.

Iraq’s Red Crescent staff reported back, the sources said, that they had been able to identify at least three of the men in the photographs—leading External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in November, to dismiss Masih’s story, and tell Parliament that the government was confident the missing men were still alive.

Red Crescent volunteers, the sources added, also returned with several names of Indian nations not in the list of 39 missing men, but trapped in areas under Islamic State control—some of them apparently from southern India.

The Indian Express is withholding the names of the three men identified from the photographs, as well as the others.

However, the diplomatic sources added, the informants had been unable to speak with the men they identified, and did not provide any proof of life on the hostages, for example photographs or belongings.

“Its obvious that this isn’t a very reliable means of finding someone”, a senior intelligence official involved in the search told The Indian Express. “People’s hair grows, their hair is shaved, turbans are removed”.

“However”, he added, “its not like there are any better options on offer—and the fact is we have to proceed on the basis that the men are alive until there’s some actual evidence to the contrary”.

In a separate effort, the Research and Analysis Wing stationed two officers in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, to tap local intelligence services. The men had retained Masih in the city for several months, hoping he would be able to identify any survivors who appeared.

Help, an officer involved in the process had told The Indian Express, had not been forthcoming “I guess it is understandable”, he said, “they have a war to worry about, and important as our citizens are to us, they’re not top priorities for anyone else”.

New Delhi’s optimism also stems from the fact that the Islamic State has not publicised the executions. However, media reports from the region show thousands—particularly from the religious minorities—have been executed or sold as slaves without any publicity.

Source:: Indian Express