Kerala - Kochi   

Mahendra’s family optimistic

KOCHI: “I am 101 per cent confident that my brother is alive,” says Uma Mohan, sister of Mahendra G. Menon, the Keralite chief engineer on the cargo ship m.v. Rezzak, which bas been reported missing in the Black Sea since March 18. “I am certain that all the 25 crewmen are alive, too.”

She believes that the ship had not sunk, rather it had been ‘sunken.’ In a telephone interview, Ms. Mohan told

The Hindu from Mumbai that it was a case of maritime fraud aimed to swindle the insurance money.

Ms. Mohan, who is a travel agency executive in UAE, had come down to Mumbai a week after the ship’s disappearance to find her brother’s whereabouts and to console his wife and children, believes that the ship’s disappearance was a stage-managed operation.

Mr. Menon, 52, born at Cherplassery in Palakkad, had served on ships for nearly three decades and was a highly experienced maritime officer. His family lives in Mumbai; and his two sisters and a brother and their respective families have been pressing government officials, shipping organisations and international maritime agencies to trace the ship.

Krishna Nair, Mr. Menon’s younger brother-in-law, believes that Rezzak, which had reportedly left Russia for Turkey on February 17, would not have arrived in the Turkish waters; the ship could have been diverted after it left the Russian port. The old ship, he told The Hindu, had been detained at the Russian port for 20 days for not having all the required equipment onboard. He also believes that the things the Turkish Coast Guard found (the floating materials carried the labels of Rezzak’s former name) could have been deposited in the sea to mislead those on the ship’s trail. He feels that the search for the ship should have begun from the Russian part of the sea rather than in the Turkish waters. Mr. Nair notes that Mr. Menon’s mobile phone used to ring until three days back.

The relatives allege that ‘big guns’ in India might have colluded with the gang that got the ship ‘missing.’ Officials in the Director-General of Shipping had not been helpful.

Ms. Mohan points out that in the past three years, four ships had gone missing with 56 Indian crewmen on board them. These vessels were: Jupiter 6 (13 crewmen, including a Keralite and four seamen from Lakshadweep); Infinity Marine (16); Reef Asiana (2); and, Rezzak (25—including 10 Lakshadweep seamen and one Malayali officer). “Why is it that the Director-General, Shipping, is not able to find any information about these 56 missing Indians?”

On Tuesday, the relatives of the missing crewmen, petitioned the President, the Prime Ministers and other top Government functionaries to order an investigation into the missing ship by the Central Bureau of Investigation. They also wanted the government to ask Interpol to launch a probe into the suspected ‘ship-jacking.’

Meanwhile, the search and rescue operation to trace the ship has now been officially abandoned. Pelican Marine, the Mumbai-based manning agency that recruited staff for Rezzak, has sent condolence letters to the relatives of the missing staff.

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Mahendra’s family optimistic

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