3,500 Indians would be back from Libya by Wednesday: Krishna
By IANSTuesday, March 1, 2011
NEW DELHI - External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna Tuesday assured that the evacuation of Indians from violence-torn Libya was going on smoothly and over 3,500 people would have returned home by Wednesday.
“The evacuation of Indians who are wanting to come back is going (on) smoothly. And so far by tomorrow, I think 3,500 persons would have been evacuated from Tripoli,” Krishna told reporters outside parliament.
He added that 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 around 600 Indians from Libya arrived here early Tuesday, taking the total number of people evacuated by the four Air India special flights to around 1,200.
Both the special Air India flights from Tripoli - Airbus A-330 and Boeing 747 - arrived at Terminal 2 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport, an official said.
The Airbus A-330 had 266 passengers, while the Boeing 747 had 331 passengers.
India is closely watching developments in the North Africa and West Asia regions.
India was closely watching the developments in such nations and will respond depending upon how the situation develops, Krishna replied when asked about the people’s movement spreading to other countries.
“Well… we are not going to speculate as to how this revolution, resentment (or) revolt is going to impact other countries,” he said.
