Chandigarh: The Punjab government on Saturday announced it will foot the bill of phone calls made by family members of Indian men from the state that are stranded in strife-torn Iraq.
A spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s Office said frequent international calls being made by the panic-stricken family members of the trapped people was a costly affair, and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal decided that the state government would repay the entire expenditure incurred by them on making these calls.
Over 200 men, mostly youth, from Punjab are stuck in the oil-rich nation which is witnessing fighting since early June. Some of them have been taken hostage by insurgents while others are missing. Over 40 Indians, mostly from Punjab, were kidnapped by June 11 in northern Iraq’s Mosul town.
Most Indian workers in Iraq are construction or skilled workers. Punjab’s NRI Affairs Minister Tota Singh said that till Friday evening, more than 200 families rang up the control room, giving details about their relatives stuck in Iraq.
Of these Indians in Iraq, the highest number 29 are from Jalandhar, 28 from Kapurthala, 23 from Amritsar and 22 from Gurdaspur districts. In neighbouring Haryana, the state government Saturday said it had information on 127 men from the state who are stuck in Iraq.
Bureau Report
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