First batch of Lebanon evacuees mostly from TN

New Delhi, Jul 21: Out of the 607 passengers reaching India by two special Air India aircrafts from the war-torn Lebanon tonight, a majority of them are natives of Tamil Nadu.

There are 441 passengers hailing from Tamil Nadu, Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed said here today.

He said one of the two aircrafts took most of the evacuees belonging to Tamil Nadu to Chennai. It would land Chennai with 342 passengers on board at 2100 hrs tonight.

The other aircraft would land Mumbai with the remaining passengers at 2300 hrs tonight.

"Since all the passengers from Tamil Nadu could not be flown in the aircraft bound for Chennai, about 100 of them are brought to Mumbai in the other aircraft," official sources said.

The first batch of evacuees being flown in included six from Nepal. All them would be flown to Mumbai.

The others included : 53 from Delhi, 42 from Maharashtra, 10 from Kerala, six from Punjab, two from Hyderabad and one from Kolkata.

The destinations in the case of 46 passengers are not known, he said.

In one of the largest single evacuation exercises during the nine-day old West Asian crisis, India yesterday pulled out 607 of its nationals from Lebanon to Larnaca (Cyprus) for being airlifted to India.

The aircrafts, which left Mumbai early this morning, left Larnaca in Cyprus where the stranded Indians were brought by INS Mumbai from Beirut yesterday.

UNI