AHMEDABAD: A fishing trawler that went missing on November 14 may have carried the terrorists to Colaba coast Wednesday police sources told TOI.
This boat - Kuber - belongs to a fisherman from Porbander, Vinod Masani, who has been detained by Porbander police for interrogation. Indian Coast Guard spotted the boat with the body of captain Amarsing Naran, 30, in it. Four crew from Navsari and Junagadh districts are still missing. The Coast Guard is also looking for another missing boat which could have been used by terrorists.
It is suspected that this trawler was captured by the terrorists on high seas to be used as their transport vehicle to reach Gateway of India from Karachi port.
Sources in Porbander confirmed that the boat was traced by a Chetak helicopter of Mumbai Coast Guard some 20 nautical miles off Porbander. This boat had set sail for Jakhau in Kutch near India-Pakistan border for fishing on November 14. Usually these boats return from fishing within 10 days but this one did not. The fisheries department was alerted about this on November 24. Kuber, with a 118 HP marine engine, had five crew members on board. It has a maximum speed of seven to eight nautical miles per hour. The boat is 45x15x11 feet in size and costs Rs 30 lakh. It can carry up to 20 tonnes.
Porbander district headquarters' Coast Guard is interrogating Vinod Masani and his brother Hiralal, who has the power of attorney for the boat. It is also suspected that the Pakistan Marine Agency helped the terrorists hijack the trawler. The missing crew include Balwant Prabhu, 45, Mukesh Rathod, 20, and Natu Nanu, 20, of Navsari and Ramesh Nagji, 37, of Junagadh.
Porbander SP Dipankar Trivedi said, "We are in the process of interrogating some people.'' The suspicion is that terrorists used the trawler to reach Mumbai's marine borders and then used two inflatable boats to reach Colaba.
Junagadh IG I M Desai said, "We have no confirmed information, but know about a fishing boat from Porbander that was missing.'' A massive manhunt was launched off the Mumbai coast on Wednesday by Coast Guard, Navy, marine wing of Mumbai Police and Customs after it became evident that most, if not all, of the terrorists had arrived in the city through sea route.
Coast Guard's IG (Western Region) Rajendra Singh said three helicopters, two Dorniers, three large ships, two smaller vessels were involved in the search operation.
About eight terrorists came in from the sea off Badhwar Park in Colaba in geminicraft (inflatable boat) with a 20-HP engine around 9pm on Wednesday. A police officer of the Cuffe Parade police station said fishermen near the jetty got suspicious as they deserted the boat and headed towards the road. "When the fishermen stopped them, they said, humko tension hai and pointed their weapons,'' said the police officer.
Another officer of the Cuffe Parade police station said, "The fishermen told us they were about 10-12 men. They split into two groups. While one group went towards CST and other towards Colaba. The engine and chasiss number of the Yamaha motor engine used for the boat has been scrapped, so as to make it difficult to trace the place of purchase.''
A retired IPS officer said the fishermen had also called the police, but they came late. An official said boats deserted by terrorists have been found in Colaba and off Chowpatty.
Meanwhile, a merchant vessel, MV Alpha, suspected to have ferried the terrorists, was intercepted on the high seas by Navy and Coast Guard warships on Thursday evening. Though some reports said the Vietnamese-registered MV Alpha had been given the "clean chit'', a senior Naval officer told TOI the ship was still being investigated after it was boarded by naval and Coast Guard personnel on the high seas off Gujarat's coast. "A probe will take some time. The vessel's crew and manifest are being checked,'' he said.
Earlier, launching a surveillance with warships, Dornier aircraft and copters, armed forces began a hunt for "a mother ship'' which could have carried the perpetrators of the terror strikes since three inflatable Zodiac gemini boats were found abandoned at the dock near the Gateway of India.
"MV Alpha, which came to Mumbai from Saudi Arabia on November 19 and left on Wednesday night, was found to be suspicious. It had sailed around 50 nautical miles away Mumbai by 7 am on Thursday,'' said an officer.
A naval Veer-class guided missile corvette INS Vipul and a Coast Guard T-81 fast-attack craft were soon launched, along with two Dornier medium-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft, to track and intercept MV Alpha.
Simultaneously, a Leander-class frigate INS Vindhyagiri was also diverted from its routine patrol at sea to hunt for the merchant vessel. Moreover, the IAF scrambled maritime-strike Jaguar fighters from Jamnagar to patrol the region. All this activity came amid indications that the aim was to block any attempt by a "suspect'' ship to reach Pakistan.
"Ten Army columns (around 1,000 soldiers) and four units of marine commandos were deployed in and around the Taj Mahal and Trident hotels. An aerial and land surveillance at the approaches to the Mumbai harbour was also conducted, with antecedents of all vessels in and around the region being checked,'' said an official.
Terrorists may have hijacked Porbander fishing boat-India-The Times of India
