Evacuation of Indians from Libya going smooth: Krishna

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 today.

"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.