NEW DELHI: India announced it would stop granting its nationals permission to travel to Iraq for work as it stepped up efforts to secure the release of 39 Indians abducted by gunmen.
“The overseas affairs ministry has stopped granting immigration clearances to Indians travelling to Iraq for one month,” foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin told reporters.
The clearance is mostly required for Indians seeking employment in Iraq, where security forces are currently battling Sunni militants who have taken over large swathes of the country.
Those travelling for other purposes were also advised to cancel their plans, Akbaruddin said.
The spokesman further confirmed that one of a group of 40 Indian construction workers abducted on Monday in the militant-held city of Mosul had escaped. The families of several of the men met Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday, who promised the utmost would be done to secure their release.
Government estimates that around 120 of its nationals, including the 39 captured in Mosul and another group of 45 nurses holed up in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, have been caught up in the unrest.
“A total of 16 of these 120 have managed to leave the country in two batches of eight each,” the ministry spokesman said.
The Punjab government has released a list of 78 people who are missing, taken hostage or stranded in Iraq. Most are construction or skilled workers.
One of them managed to telephone the family to say they were facing terrible hardships after being abducted along with other fellow workers by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Mosul town. India was also asking the Iraqi government to alter an order that required foreign nationals to leave from their port of entry, and to ensure those crossing into neighbouring states were not denied access, Akbaruddin said.
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