Harjit Masih is right

Right is right even though nobody is right. Wrong is wrong even though everybody is wrong.

Truth is not a matter of numbers. Lunar eclipse takes place during full moon. Everybody saying lunar eclipse takes place during new moon does not make it true.

Sushma Swaraj was wrong about 39 Indians in Mosul and is wrong about Harjit Masih. So amount of subterfuge and convoluted and twisted reasoning can make her right.

Harjit Masih had told the government officials about ISIS killing 39 Indians. They wanted to suppress the truth. The government did not want the country to know the truth. Modi government had taken over on 26/5/2014 and it did not want bad news of the death of Indians in Mosul to be known. For long it suppressed the truth.

Harjet Masih was part of the group that was abducted in 2014 while trying to escape an ISIS attack on Mosul on 11/6/2014. After he returned to India, the government had kept him in “protective custody” as Foreign Minister had told parliament in November 2014. Harjit Masih was told family members of other Indians were angry with him. He wondered why they were angry with him.

The officers who dealt with him in protective custody lured him with the promise of a job and told him to say that the others were not dead. They told him to say I don’t know about the others and that he escaped. He was treated well while in protective custody during which he was kept in Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore and Greater Noida.

Out of protective custody Harjit Masih went public with death of 39 Indians. Modi government hit by having cases of trafficking registered against him by the families of 39 deceased. His father died because of this tension. He had to spend six months in jail.

Sushma Swaraj had personally met the families of the abducted persons several times and assured them that the government was “fully and continuously engaged” and “every possible effort” was being made to ensure their release.

On 14/5/2015 Sushma Swaraj contradicted Harjit Masih. She said the Indians were alive. “We had six sources before. Now we have eight sources. All say Indians are alive. There is no question of not believing the eighth source.” Who was her eighth source? Narendra Modi?

All was well for Sushma Swaraj till Mosul and surrounding areas were under ISIS control. In June 2017 Iraq defeated ISIS and captured Mosul and surrounding areas. Soon it was obvious Indians were not there. There were reports that they were in Badush prison. It was found Badush prison was in ruins, destroyed after ISIS victory in 2014. No traces of Indians. Now some family members started to doubt Sushma Swaraj? They asked “Why will Harjit Masih lie?”

Sushma Swaraj started avoiding meeting family members of the dead and taking their phone calls. One MP who questioned her on this on Twitter was blocked.

On 20/3/2018 Sushma Swaraj in Rajya Sabha announced the death of 39 Indians. Till then she had denied they were dead. Harjit Masih said the statement on Tuesday about the death of 39 Indians in Mosul confirms what he has been telling the government all along.

The family members of 39 Indians were devastated. They had trusted Sushma Swaraj even though they had heard Harjit Masih say those Indians were dead. The government knew they were dead but claimed otherwise.

BJP apologists have excuses for what Sushma Swaraj did. They can fool themselves, not others. Some do not want opposition parties to politicise the issue. Politicians are there to politicise. If politicians do not politicise who else will politicise? BJP would have done the same if it was in opposition.