KOCHI: The AIS, set up after 26/11 attack, picks up all details of vessels passing through a particular area.A total of 1,51,818 vessels in the position were tracked through the AIS data. At 6.20 pm, the MRCC identified four vessels - MT Enrica Lexie, MT Kamome Victoria, MBA Giovanni and Ocean Breeze - operating in the region. Once the four suspected contacts were tracked how did the officials identified the actual culprit? “The coastal security officials contacted all four vessels, asked each of them whether they faced a piracy attack. Three vessels replied in negative. Enrica Lexie said they had been attacked by pirates. They were asked to come to Kochi as we need to finish with the formalites of pirate attack,” said SPS Basra, Regional Commander, Coast Guard (West). The vessel was about 70 nautical miles away from the coast. It was a strategic move by the coastal security agencies to bring the merchant vessel to Indian waters, as it would have been difficult to initiate action against the vessel if it entered international waters. As per the version given by Enrica Lexie, they sighted a suspicious boat at 2.8 nautical mile closing in at 4 pm. The boat was warned by flashing search lights and displaying weapons, but the boat closed up to 100m. The security team sighted six persons and fired warning shots. Later the boat aborted the chase and at 5 pm, the alert was called off. The vessel e-mailed the report to the UK MTO at 6.17 pm. However according to top officials, the vessel had not followed the maritime protocol before shooting. It has been pointed out if a vessel comes across piracy attack, they are supposed to inform the MRCC. Enrica Lexie did not pass on the information for about two-and-a-half hours.
Comments
0 comment