Two Indian nationals are said to have been kidnapped in Nigeria by militants owing allegiance to the terror group Boko Haram. One of the two men abducted is a 44-year-old engineer from Visakhapatnam, Mangipudi Sai Srinivas, and the other has been identified as Anish Sharma, his colleague.
Both are employees in a cement plant in Gboko town in Benue state in north central Nigeria. According to to the information available the incident took place on Wednesday, but it came to light on Thursday when Sai Srinivas’ family met Visakhapatnam district collector N Yuvaraj and pleaded for help in securing his release.
According to Mr Srinivas’ wife Lalitha, she tried in vain to reach her husband over phone on Wednesday and later when she called up the officials of the cement plant they responded on Thursday morning informing her that Srinivas and Anish Sharma had been kidnapped.
Mr. Sai Srinivas and Mr. Anish Sharma were being driven to the Dangote cement plant in a car from their residential quarters at around 7.20 pm (IST) Wednesday. When they stopped at a traffic intersection, a group of men surrounded the car, dragged the driver out and hijacked the car with the two Indians in it.
According to the management of the cement company, the two men are likely to have been kidnapped by a local gang in Gboko town. However, no demands have been set by the kidnappers so far. The management has not yet received any communication from them.
The engineer’s wife Lalita met the inspectors of the Special Branch in the Police Commissioner’s office and also submitted a formal complaint to District Collector N. Yuvaraj yesterday. District Collector Yuvraj and police officials said that emails and letters would be forwarded immediately to the Ministry of External Affairs and embassies for the required action.