Kerala - Kochi   

Missing ship: plea for Interpol probe

KOCHI: Parents of the 10 Minicoy sailors on the missing cargo ship m.v. Rezzak have petitioned the Prime Minister for asking the Interpol to investigate the mysterious disappearance of the ship in the Black Sea.

“Our firm belief is that our loved ones are still alive and they can be rescued only if the owner of the ship, its managers, the manning agent in Mumbai and also everyone connected with the operation of the ship and cargo are properly interrogated and a thorough investigation done by the Interpol,” the parents said in a memorandum sent to the Prime Minister.

The ship, carrying 25 Indian crewmen, including 10 sailors from Minicoy in Lakshadweep and a Malayali officer, has gone missing after it left Novorossiysk in Russia for a Turkish port on February 18.

“The circumstances under which the ship, along with 25 Indians, disappeared mysteriously make it very clear that it was a ‘big drama’ and a maritime fraud to claim the huge insurance amount (around 6 million US dollars which is several times the cost of the old ship),” the petitioners said. “No doubt, our dear ones are under somebody’s captivity most probably with the knowledge of the owner, the managers, the manning agent and others.”

They said they had right from the beginning urged the authorities to extend the search operations to the Russian coast where they believed there were strategic locations that could hide smuggled ships.

They also pointed out that in the last few years, many Indian ships had vanished and that there had been no trace of any of them. In the past three years, 14 sailors from Minicoy alone had gone missing.

They said though the ship’s manning agent had informed them that the ship had gone missing on February 20 evening, they suspect that it had gone missing as soon as it had left the Russian port. They suspect that an international racket was involved in the ship’s missing.

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