2 out of 4 Abducted Indians in Libya Released, tweets Sushma

Four teachers, two of whom were released later, were held captive by the ISIS in Libya on Friday.

The Indian government has not received any ransom demand and was trying to locate the missing men, officials told news media.

But senior Indian officials posted in Libya confirmed to this newspaper that the negotiations that culminated in the release of Kumar and Lakshmikanth were led by Mousa Mohammed Mousa, chancellor of the University of Sirte, where the two teachers worked. “Our efforts continue for the remaining two”. All four hail from the south of India: two from Hyderabad and two from Karnataka.

Three of those abducted are faculty members at the Sirte university and the fourth person works at a university branch in Jufra.

The Iraq- and Syria-based Islamic State has capitalized on the anarchy following Gadhafi’s fall to gobble up wide swaths of territory in Libya.

The Ministry of External Affairs later said two of the four Indian nationals have been released and been brought back safely to the university.

August 1, (Agencies):Former Union Minister and Congress leader Manish Tewari today took a dig at Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, saying she seemed to have a “direct “hotline” to the ISIS in Libya”, and asked whether India is “doing business” with the extremist group in that country.

One of them, Gopikrishna, is from Hyderabad. Balram is from neighbouring Andhra. “We are in regular touch with their families”, the MEA sopkesperson Vikas Swarup said.

Relatives and friends of Gopikrishna gathered at their residence in Nacharam here after learning about the kidnapping. According to family members, he has been coming home on leave every year for 45 to 50 days.

The wife of one of the men still detained, Gopikrishna, said she had spoken to him last on Wednesday. They then left for a 450-km journey to Tripoli and reached the safe environs of the Indian embassy in Tripoli about 9 pm local time. Rao also spoke to Rashid Khan, Charge d’affaires at the Indian embassy at Libya and learnt about the situation on the ground, a statement from his office here said. However, it was not immediately known how they were freed.