Meanwhile Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao expressed hope that both the residents of Hyderabad will return home safely and will be reunited with their families. Their luggage was returned and they were told to check if everything was intact. The hostages still in captivity are identified as Balram and Gopikrishna.
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Three of the men had been teaching at the university. Following their release, the Indians from Karnataka – Vijay Kumar from Bangarpet in Kolar district and Lakshmikant from Raichur – set out for the Indian mission in Tripoli, some 500 kilometres from Sirte where they had been abducted.
The government assured that it is taking every effort to bring back the abducted Indians.
The latest kidnappings follow the abductions of four Italian nationals last week and 10 Tunisian consular staff last month.
Incidentally one of the mobile phones was left behind in the taxi, according to sources.
When his wife called the number later, the taxi driver told her what happened. India maintains only a small mission in Tripoli with Charge d’Affaires Mohammad Rashid Khan, and a few security personnel staffing it, and monitors the situation through the Embassy in Tunisia.
Indian media reported that the 4 have been kidnapped by armed rebels linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
There are 2,000 Indians at present in conflict-hit Libya, who stayed back despite many advisories urging them to leave the country.
Thirty-nine Indian workers are still missing in Iraq. Sources said that since ISIS controls the previous Gaddafi fortress of Sirte, authorities suspect the four men are being held by ISIS or powers associated to the terrorist group. Efforts to get them released have not yielded any results.
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Swaraj said she was also anxious about many Indian nurses who were returning to Yemen, torn by civil war, a few months after being evacuated.
