FORTY Indians were among workers kidnapped near Mosul, Iraq, where they were employed by a Turkish construction company, India’s Foreign Ministry announced yesterday.

Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said there had been no contact with the kidnappers and no ransom demand had been received.

He said the workers were mostly from northern Indian states including Punjab and had been working for the Tariq Noor al-Huda construction company in Iraq.

Other abductees were from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Turkey and Turkmenistan.

There are about 10,000 Indian citizens working and living in Iraq, but only about 100 are in insecure areas.

That included 46 Indian nurses working in a hospital in the Iraqi town of Tikrit — recently seized by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant militants — but Mr Akbaruddin said humanitarian organisations had been in touch with them and they were safe.

“We are willing to assist any of the nurses who wish to return to India,” he said.