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We are informed that the Indian Minister of State also visited Mosul, Village Badush and Tal Afar.

(xxi) The Iraqi officials again requested India to provide the DNA samples of close relatives of the missing Indians as soon as possible.

(xxii) In the meantime, at the instance of Gen. V.K. Singh (Retd.), Minister of State for External Affairs, the mound at Village Badush was checked by ground penetration radar till its bottom when it was revealed that the mound had human remains, confirming that it was a mass grave.

(xxiii) So far as the DNA sampling is concerned, the respondents have disclosed that between 13th to 17th November, 2017, 19 DNA samples of close relatives of missing Indians (16 from Punjab and 3 from Himachal Pradesh) were acknowledged. Subsequently, two additional lots, one of 5 samples from Punjab and 7 (2 from Punjab and 5 from Bihar) samples, being a total of 30 samples were collected and despatched to Iraq for DNA profiling and matching.

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(xxiv) In December, 2017, the Martyrs Foundation, Iraq opened the mass grave and commenced the process of transporting the human remains for identification to the Forensic Department in Baghdad.

(xxv) On 13th December, 2017, two more DNA Samples received from the States Division were forwarded to the Mission in Iraq bringing the total number of the relatives' samples to 33.

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(xxviii) The care which was taken by the authorities is evident from the fact that it was even disclosed that so far as the 39th missing Indian worker - Raju Kumar Yadav was concerned, no close relatives were available for DNA sampling and matching. The sample received of his relative, could match only up to 70% with that of the remaining unidentified human remains.

(xxix) In this background, these disclosures could be made by the Minister of External Affairs and the Minister of State for External Affairs, Government of India in a press conference on that date.