Seven Indians, most of them engineers working at a power station, were abducted from northern Baghlan province by the Taliban in May of 2018.
Three Indian nationals, abducted in Afghanistan last year, have been released by the Taliban in an exchange for 11 of its members, including some high-ranking officials of the militant group, Afghan media reported.
Quoting Sayed Mohammad Akbar Agha, a former Taliban commander, Tolo News reported that the prisoner swap took place on Sunday at an undisclosed location.
Neither the Taliban or officials from the Afghan or Indian governments have confirmed the report.
Seven Indians, most of them engineers working at a power station, were abducted from northern Baghlan province by the Taliban in May of 2018. They were abducted from Bagh-e-Shamal village near the Pul-e-Khomri city.
While one of them was released earlier this year, the fate of three is not known.
The development comes days after US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad met the Taliban in Pakistan. One of the demands by the American side was for the release of foreign prisoners in the Taliban custody.
Last week, Khalilzad met the Taliban's top negotiator Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the head of a Taliban delegation that visited Islamabad to discuss resuming the talks that were halted last month.
A government source in Islamabad said the American side had asked the Taliban to release five foreigners in their custody which included three Indian engineers, one Australian and one American.
One of the Taliban leaders released by the Afghan forces is Anas Haqqani, youngest son of leader of the Haqqani network Jalaluddin Haqqani.
The seven abducted Indians were working in Indian company KEC which has its headquarters in Mumbai. The company owns an electricity sub-station contract in the area. Earlier in March of this year, one of the abducted Indian was brought back to India.
The Ministry of External Affairs had then said, "We are grateful to the Government of Afghanistan for their support in securing the release and repatriation of the Indian national."
(With inputs from Sidhant Sibal in New Delhi and Anas Mallick in Islamabad)
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