The Hindu : Kerala News : Language barrier hampers questioning

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 19, 2006

Kerala

Kerala

Language barrier hampers questioning

Special Correspondent

KOCHI: The language barrier is hampering the questioning, by intelligence agencies, of the 33 crewmembers of a Taiwanese fishing vessel who were rescued from the Lakshadweep Sea by the Coast Guard on Sunday.

But for one person who speaks broken English, the sailors— from Taiwan, the Philippines, China and Vietnam— speak only their native languages. This has impeded the Intelligence Bureau's questioning them. The IB officials have asked their Kochi office to urgently find someone who can speak one these languages and who can act as an interpreter.

The shipwreck sailors are currently housed in the Indian Reserve Battalion camp at Kavaratti, the capital of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep.

Meanwhile, G.K.P. Sreekumar, district operations officer of Coast Guard's District 4 based in Kochi, said the ship, Isabel III, had not violated India's maritime rules. It had informed the Coast Guard authorities in Delhi of its July 15 "innocent passage" through India's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) well in advance. The Coast Guard reconnaissance aircraft had spotted the vessel even before it had run aground on the coral reef in Suheli Par. It had not engaged in illegal fishing in Indian waters as the Coast Guard aircraft had found the fishing gear and nets towed away on board.

Mr. Sreekumar suspects that the ship would have gone aground because of navigational error caused by bad weather.

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