Mumbai: Indian Navy and Coast Guard have foiled an attack by Somali pirates on a Chinese merchant vessel in Arabian sea. The incident occurred 900 kilometres from the coastline in Indian waters.
A Navy aircraft reached the spot within 30 minutes of receiving an SOS from the merchant vessel MV Full City.
“In a major operation, a foreign merchant vessel with Chinese crew members on board was saved from an attack by sea brigands yesterday,” a Coast Guard official said without divulging further details in Mumbai on Friday.
The pirates were forced to evacuate the vessel, and the 24-member Chinese crew were able to regain control. There were no arrests made nor any injuries to any of the crew.
Navy and Coast Guard have prevented a number of attacks by Somalians in the past few months and apprehended over a 100 pirates, mostly Somalians, and handed them over to Mumbai police.
The pirates are lodged in various jails across the city.
On March 26, the Navy had apprehended 16 sea brigands and rescued 16 crew members after battling with the Somalian pirates West off the Lakshadweep Islands.
On March 13, the Indian Navy foiled a pirates’ attack and apprehended a pirate mother ship rescuing 13 crew members and caught 61 Somali sea brigands about 600 nautical miles off the western coast in the Arabian Sea.
(With additional information from PTI)
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