New Delhi: The evacuation of Indians from
strife-torn Libya is going smoothly and over 3,500 people
would have returned home by tomorrow, External Affairs
Minister S M Krishna said here Tuesday.
"The evacuation of Indians who are wanting to come
back is going smoothly. And so far by tomorrow, I think 3500
persons would have been evacuated from Tripoli," Krishna told
reporters outside Parliament.
He said the Government was using commercial flights,
chartered flights and shipping lines to evacuate stranded
Indians.
"And we hope that we should be able to pursue this
evacuation," Krishna said.
Another batch of 331 Indians from Libya arrived early
today, taking the total number of people evacuated by the four
Air India special flights to 1083.
To a question on people`s movement spreading to other
countries, Krishna said India was "closely watching" the
developments in such nations and will respond "depending upon
how the situation develops."
"Well...we are not going to speculate as to how this
revolution, resentment, revolt is going to impact other
countries,".
"But the External Affairs Ministry through our
missions....we are closely watching the situation...monitoring
the situation...and depending upon how the situation
develops we respond," he said.
On the fate of the Indians in a ship hijacked by
Somalian pirates, Krishna said the External Affairs Ministry
"will certainly get in touch with our Navy and try to find a
solution."
Krishna said the Government was in touch with other
countries who are also affected by this menace and India will
try to checkmate this menace with support from other
countries.
"They are international menace and well I hope...they
will not resort to any such drastic measures because that is
going to be very harmful," he said.
"Let us hope that they will see the path of reason and
sanity and will not harm those have been taken into
captivity," he said.
PTI
