Express News Service By

VISAKHAPATNAM: Two Indian nationals are said to have been kidnapped in Nigeria by militants owing allegiance to the terror group Boko Haram on Wednesday. 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.

Though the incident took place Wednesday, it came to light Thursday when Sai Srinivas’ family met Visakhapatnam district collector N Yuvaraj and pleaded for help in securing his release.

According to reports reaching here, Sai Srinivas and 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.

Expressing anguish, Srinivas’ wife Lalitha said her husband is a civil engineer employed by the Dangote cement plant in Gboko town for the last three years. He worked earlier for the Aditya Birla group in Raipur. Srinivas was transferred to the Gboko town where a new project was built. His last visit home was in January.

“I tried to reach my husband on Wednesday but in vain. I called up the officials of the cement plant and they responded on Thursday morning and informed me that my husband and Anish Sharma had been kidnapped,” Lalitha said.

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.

When Lalitha met the collector Yuvraj along with her son and daughter, he told them that he had information that search operations were going on for the two Indians and that the district administration has sent mails seeking the help of officials in the Ministry of External Affairs.