External affairs minister S.M. Krishna has on Tuesday assured that the evacuation of Indians from violence-torn Libya was going on smoothly and over 3,500 people would have returned home by Wednesday.
"The evacuation of Indians who are wanting to come back is going (on) smoothly. And so far by Monday, I think 3,500 persons would have been evacuated from Tripoli," Mr Krishna told reporters outside Parliament.
Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao added to the assurance saying, "Over 1,000 Indian evacuees have already boarded a rescue ship in the Libyan city of Benghazi."
In a tweet at foreign secretary Nirupama Rao said, '1100 passengers boarded our ship at Benghazi. Almost twenty per cent of our 18000 people have been evacuated out of Libya'.
Indian diplomacy. the 'official twitter account of public diplomacy division of ministry of external affairs' also gave out the number of evacuees fleeing Libya.
"864 Indians housed safely at Djerba, Tunisia; 175 crossed over from Selloum to Cairo; 126 have come out through private or other efforts. Of 18, 000 Indians in Libya, 3504 safely evacuated till now, including 1134 from Tripoli by Air India, 1188 from Benghazi by the Scotia Prince".
Another batch of around 600 Indians from Libya arrived here early on Tuesday, taking the total number of people evacuated by the four Air India special flights to around 1,200.
Both the special Air India flights from Tripoli - Airbus A-330 and Boeing 747 - arrived at Terminal 2 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport, an official said.
The Airbus A-330 had 266 passengers, while the Boeing 747 had 331 passengers.
India is closely watching developments in the North Africa and West Asia regions.
India was 'closely watching' the developments in such nations and will respond 'depending upon how the situation develops', Krishna replied when asked about the people's movement spreading to other countries.
"Well... we are not going to speculate as to how this revolution, resentment (or) revolt is going to impact other countries," he said.