DHAKA: Forty Indian construction workers have been abducted in violence-hit northern Iraq.

The Indian foreign ministry said on Wednesday, reports The Straits Times.

The workers were taken from the region around Mosul, which has been overrun by militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a foreign ministry spokesman said.

‘We have not received any ransom calls yet,’ Syed Akbaruddin told reporters in New Delhi.

‘We are trying to get as much information as possible from anyone trying to give us information from the ground,’ he said.

BDST: 1805 HRS, JUNE 18, 2014