An Indian man who was kidnapped in Libya has been rescued and is being brought back to India shortly, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Tuesday night.
Swaraj tweeted:
We have rescued Dr.Ramamurthy Kosanam in Libya. Dr.Kosanam has suffered a bullet injury. We are bringing him to India shortly. 1/
— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 21, 2017
With this, we have rescued all the six Indians abducted there. I appreciate the good work done by our mission there. /2
— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 21, 2017
Dr Ramamurthy Kosanam was reportedly abducted by Islamic State militants in Libya nearly 18 months back. The doctor hails from a village Krishna District in Andhra Pradesh.
The circumstances of the release have not been made public.
A Hindu report said that Ramamurthy was a working in the Lbn-e-Sina Hospital at Sirte when a group of ISIS gunmen kidnapped him, an engineer from Odisha and seven Filipino nurses in September 2015.
An NDTV report quoted his son as saying that the doctor had been working in Libya for 15 years before his abduction. His brother told the channel that the doctor had continued to work in Libya despite the chaos there due to financial problems the family was facing.
with inputs from PTI