NEW DELHI – After an hours-long journey in a private bus from villages near the city of Amritsar, in Punjab State, the families of 13 of the 40 construction workers whom the Indian government announced had been kidnapped in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul arrived at the Gurdwara Rakab Ganj, a centuries-old Sikh shrine, on Thursday afternoon.
They had come to Delhi to meet Sushma Swaraj, the minister of external affairs. Shortly after they arrived, a spokesman for the ministry announced at a press briefing that the 40 kidnapped workers had been found. He declined to give details of their whereabouts.
The city of Mosul was overtaken by extremists from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on June 10.
The family members offered prayers in the massive white marble shrine, and upon exiting, heard the news that their relatives had been found. Gurpinder Kaur, whose brother was among the 40, wept.
Seema, 28, who goes by one name, was among those who had traveled more than 240 miles on Thursday from her village in Punjab to meet Ms. Swaraj. Seema’s husband was one of the construction workers with the Tariq Noor al-Huda construction company who had been kidnapped.
The Indian government did not confirm who was responsible for the kidnapping, but Yassin al-Ma’amouri, the head of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian aid organization, said Wednesday that ISIS was likely responsible.
“There is no safety in captivity,” Syed Akbaruddin, the spokesman for the external affairs ministry, said at the briefing on Thursday. “Safety is in places where people are welcome.”
Seema said that she had last spoken to her husband on Sunday, when there was fighting in the city. She learned of his captivity through television reports that surfaced over the past few days.
Mr. Akbaruddin said that the families represented just a handful of the many whose loved ones are in dangerous parts of Iraq. He said on Wednesday, when he announced the kidnappings, that there were roughly 100 Indians in sensitive parts of Iraq, among the thousands living in the country.