Two of the four abducted Indians in Libya released: MEA

“We are trying to ascertain their whereabouts”, foreign ministry officials said.

Swaraj said in New Delhi that two out of four Indian teachers allegedly kidnapped the IS while returning to India from Tripoli on July 29 were released today.

On Friday, MEA said that while the three were working in the University of Sirte, one was employed at the Univeristy’s branch in Jufra district.

Indian media reported that the 4 have been kidnapped by armed rebels linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In this case, the University of Sirte had been closed since February this year, when dozens of IS men over-ran its campus. “Happy two Indians released in Sirte, Libya”. Of the four Indian nationals, two are from Hyderabad, one from Raichur and one from Bengaluru.

The representative additionally said the authorities are in customary touch with the groups of the abductees and that the MEA through head of mission in Tripoli is determining subtle elements.

Days after a report revealed that dreaded terror group ISIS was planning an attack against India, four Indians have been kidnapped by ISIS in Libya’s Sirte city.

But the IS is known to use the abduction of foreign nationals to seek hefty ransom, either from their families or the governments of their countries, to fund their rule in territories they control.

Last year India secured the return of 46 nurses from war-ravaged Tikrit, Iraq that was under the control of the Islamic State.

But negotiations for the release of Gopikrishna and Balaram remain much more complex, the officials said.

In June 2014, 40 Indians – all construction workers – were kidnapped in the violence-hit Iraqi city of Mosul.

Rajnath criticises UPA for coining phrase ‘Hindu terrorism’The United Progressive Alliance government weakened India’s fight against terrorism and diverted the direction of investigations by coining of the term “Hindu terrorism”, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said.