ICC Note: 
Recently, in a letter from the All India Catholic Union, Christians in India have called on Prime Minister Modi and his government to negotiate the release of Father Tom Uzhunnalil, a priest kidnapped in Yemen in March 2016. Fr. Tom was kidnapped after the rest and elderly home he ran was attacked by Islamic radicals associated with ISIS. The whereabouts of the priest were unknown until a video was released in December where Fr. Tom said he needed urgent medical care. Will India do what it can to negotiate the release of Fr. Tom? 
02/13/2017 India (Asia News) – The All India Catholic Union (AICU), the largest lay Catholic organization in India, is calling on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to use his influence and that of his government to negotiate with the countries of the Middle East free Fr. Tom Uzhunnalil, kidnapped in Yemen on March 4, 2016.
In the letter, signed by the President, Lancy Da Cunha, Catholics express the anguish of the Christian community over the long months of imprisonment undergone by the Salesian priest, in the hands of jihadi militants linked to the Islamic State. Cunha says, “We ask for your personal intervention and assistance to ensure that he will return home as soon as possible and in complete safety. We hope and pray that you will support us.”
Since last March, Fr. Tom, a native of Kerala, has been in the hands of an Islamic group that attacked a rest home for sick and elderly of the Missionaries of Charity in Aden, in southern Yemen. In the attack, four sisters of Mother Teresa and 12 other people present in the building were massacred. After months of silence, at the end of December, a video was posted online in which the priest gave his personal details and stated he needed “urgent medical care”.
The lay association recognizes that “the surroundings are much more complex than other cases of kidnapping of Indians in Afghanistan. We appreciate the efforts made by the government and others to the release Jesuit Father Alexis Premkumar, kidnapped in Afghanistan and released eight months later. Even Judith D’Souza, the Indian Catholic volunteer kidnapped in the same country, sometime later” was released.
…
[Full Story]