India in bid to free 2 hostages in Libya

The Indian government says it has been trying to secure the release of two of its nationals kidnapped by suspected Islamic State (IS) militants in Libya.

A total of four Indian nationals, all teachers at a local university there, were kidnapped at an IS-controlled checkpoint near the Libyan city of Sirte Wednesday.

Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj Friday said the government has managed to secure the release of two of the four kidnapped teachers and trying to get the other two freed.

"Four Indians abducted in Libya. I am happy we have been able to secure the release of Lakshmikant and Vijay Kumar. Trying for other two," Swaraj tweeted.

The four teachers, who are from the southern Indian states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and teaching at the University of Sirte, were kidnapped on their way to India.

India issued an advisory in July last year calling on its citizens to leave Libya, after a group of 65 Indian nurses were trapped in fighting in the war-torn country.

Though all the nurses, who had been working in hospitals in Libya, safely returned to India a month later, the fate of 40 Indian construction workers kidnapped in Iraqi city of Mosul is still not known.