New Delhi: Ten days after 39 Indian construction workers disappeared from the Lake Towers construction site, in the Jamia district of Mosul, next to Mosul University’s College of Agriculture and Forestry, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval moved to calm their families’ fears. “There are some grey areas and some bright spots on the horizon right now”, he said, “but we are confident of a swift resolution to the issue. We are working in a very professional manner to bring our people back”.Now, almost four years on, the government has finally admitted the men were dead – bearing out reports the men had been murdered and buried in a mass grave even before the June 21, 2014 meeting where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Doval discussed plans to deal with the crisis.In the hours after that meeting, the Ministry of External Affairs’ spokesperson at the time, Syed Akbaruddin, cheerily announced that “all the Indians were safe”.The story of how the Indian hostages were taken by the ISIS on June 10, 2014 ought have been a simple one: of one more massacre, among the hundreds the jihadist group carried out in and around Mosul as it seized power in Iraq’s second-largest city.Instead, it is also a story of the breathtaking incompetence of Indian foreign policy: an incompetence that would be comical were it not for the obscene suffering it has inflicted on the families of the victims, who were led until the very end to hope their loved ones might somehow have survived. Indeed, the record shows the Indian government actively conspired to keep the truth from the families and the victims – an act of malice with few parallels.§From the morning of June 9, the Indian workers had begun contacting the Indian mission in Baghdad for help. The first calls, diplomatic officials say, were from Harish Kumar, who worked as an assistant to the site engineer, and Kamaljit Singh, who had spent over a decade working on building sites across the region and spoke reasonable Arabic. The mission, in turn, got in touch with the contractor, Tariq Noor-ul-Huda, asking it to arrange for their transport to safety.There wasn’t, in fairness, much else the mission could do: on June 10, faced with a series of car-bomb strikes, the Iraqi army’s terrified 2nd Division fled Mosul, sparking off one of the most savage crisis West Asia has ever seen.Families of the victims remained in contact with the workers on instant messenger and phone calls, as they were shifted by ISIS insurgents – referred to in the communication as al-Qaeda – to a cotton gauze factory in Mosul’s al-Mansour industrial area. There, they were held for several days, provided hot meals and soap by their captors.Kamaljit Singh’s wife recalls he called during this time to tell: “Terrorists have picked us up. They are good people, they say they will take us to Erbil. I have been in touch with the embassy”.By the account of the sole surviving worker, Gurdaspur resident Harjit Masih, the Bangladeshi and Indian construction workers were segregated on June 15 by a second group of terrorists who arrived at the factory. That evening, the Indians were driven to the deserts around al-Badoush, outside Mosul – and executed at point blank range, he says.Harjit Masih. Credit: Twitter/@ANIThere are questions about Masih’s credibility. His account suggests the killings took place on the night of June 15 – a not implausible date, since Tariq Noor-ul-Huda broke all contact with the embassy the next day. However, Fatehgarh Churian resident Charanjit Singh, the brother of construction worker Nishan Singh, says he continued to receive text messages from his sibling until June 18. “He said he and his co-workers from India were all safe and not held hostage”, Charanjit Singh said.In her speech to the Rajya Sabha, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj alleged that Masih had in fact escaped with the Bangladeshis – instead of escaping the massacre of the Indians at al-Badoush with a minor bullet injury to his leg, as he claims.This may be true – but there are other explanations for the inconsistencies in Masih’s story. Traumatised, he could have miscounted the days the group spent in custody. There is, moreover, no plausible reason for having fabricated the story of the killings – down to their locations – especially knowing that any survivors could have discredited his account. It is even conceivable that Masih fled with the Bangladeshis and learned what had happened in Erbil – but that would not discredit his story.Upon his return, Masih was kept by the Research and Analysis Wing for nine months in what Swaraj described as “protective custody” – a peculiar expression since it is unclear who posed a threat to him. During that time, Masih claims, he was offered a job. Eventually allowed to go home on a ten-day break, Masih went public with his story.§The government, meanwhile, refused to engage with Masih’s testimony – and flatly denied reports by this correspondent which, starting in 2014, quoted Kurdish intelligence as saying the men had been killed and buried in a mass grave outside al-Sahaji, next to al-Badoush. Instead, Swaraj issued a series of statements, starting on July 23, 2014, insisting the men were alive. In her first statement, she claimed “that they are safe and alive and are also getting regular meals”; the day this correspondent’s first report was released, she asserted “with responsibility that they are alive and safe”. In 2015, she again claimed that “as per latest information from multiple third-party sources, they are all safe”.How did Swaraj arrive at this determination? In spite of both Iraq authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross stating that they had no information on the workers, New Delhi relied on testimony from other sources.Palestinian intelligence, government sources say, reported in 2015 that it had sighted the workers digging ISIS defence facilities. There were also reports from undercover Iraqi Red Crescent workers, armed with photos of the workers, saying they had seen the Indians.From early on, New Delhi knew these optimistic assessments rested on sandy foundations. The names provided by the Iraqi Red Crescent workers, for example, did not tally with those of the workers. Since these undercover operations were paid for, the informants had an obvious interest in providing positive news. The Palestinian intelligence, too, lacked detail which would have made its verification by satellite or drone imaging possible.Having committed itself to the claim that the workers were alive, it seems likely, the Modi government was simply unwilling to tell the simple truth: that there was no categorical evidence to support claims that the workers were either dead or alive.Relatives show photographs of Indian workers after their meeting with Sushma Swaraj. Credit: Adnan Abidi/ReutersFrom 2016, Swaraj began to caveat her assertions by saying evidence was unavailable – but continued to try to keep the information out of public view. However, seven months ago, when the bodies were first discovered by Iraqi authorities – bearing documents and personal effects consistent with their identity – the government withheld that information from the families. They were not notified, either, when positive DNA identification began to come in from Iraqi authorities.It was only after Iraq notified the Indian government that it would be holding a press conference to announce that the victims had been conclusively identified that the government’s hand was forced – and Swaraj went before parliament to finally tell the truth.§There are many lessons to be learned from this miserable story. First up, the government needs to be held to account for the suffering of the families. Swaraj’s claims that parliamentary protocols forced her to withhold the news until she went public on Tuesday – without as much as a phone call to the families – is simply untrue, both MPs and legal experts have been unanimous in stating. Indeed, callousness is still on display. Hoping, based on an official communication, to receive the remains of their loved ones, two families arrived at Amritsar airport – only to be told there had been a miscommunication.Sushma Swaraj in conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Credit: PTIFor all its concern about the hostages, moreover, the government has put in place no systems to make it easier for Indian overseas workers in dangerous regions to leave their jobs. In the Mosul case, the workers had paid over Rs 1 lakh each to brokers for the job – and had not received salaries for over nine months. Forced, because of economic worries, to stay behind in a war-zone, they paid with their lives. An insurance scheme could ensure no one ever finds themselves in such a situation – but the government hasn’t acted.The story illustrates the weave of magical thinking and hubris – stitched together with petty lies – that this government passes off as foreign policy. Put simply, the government abused the rights of the victims’ families to defend a series of ill-conceived statements put out by top national security officials who should have known better. Propaganda claims that this government would succeed where others could not, ended up forcing the government to persist with a pointless, damaging lie.In Sopholces’ great tragedy, Oedipus summons the blind prophet Tireseas to learn who murdered the king Laius. “You yourself are the criminal you seek”, Oedipus is told; he is blind, as surely as Tireseas, because of his inability to know the truth of the question he asks. In the end, Oedipus blinds himself with golden pins taken from his mother’s dress, hoping to exchange his eyes for insight.There are lessons in that tragedy for Prime Minister Modi and his officials – lessons, sadly, he is fated not to see.Praveen Swami is a Delhi-based journalist.