New Delhi: The government on Wednesday asserted that it cannot declare the 39 missing Indians in Mosul City of Iraq dead without any concrete evidences. Making a statement in the Lok Sabha, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said that government has been assured by the Iraqi Government that it will provide concrete information with evidences about their being alive or dead.

She said that India has contacted six middle east countries and Turkey about the whereabouts of missing Indians who were engaged in a construction work there. Swaraj assured the House that India will continue its efforts to search for them. She strongly refuted the charges of misleading the house over the issue and said that it is a sin to declare a person dead without concrete evidences.

She said, whatever she has communicated to the families of the missing Indians are based on the information received from the sources. These 39 Indians are missing since 2014.