The police have taken eight persons in the vessel into custody and interrogated them.
A boat coming from Lakshadweep, was rounded up after the coast guard suspected it was transporting arms at Mangalore’s old port. The Mangalore police and coastal police rounded up MSV Al-Jazeera, a regular visitor to Mangalore.
According to deputy commissioner of police (crime) R Ramesh, the police had searched every part of the vessel but there was nothing incriminating. This search was carried out after the police, coastal police and the coast guard were alerted on the possible infiltration of terror elements and consignments of arms into Mangalore.
MSV Al Jazeera was coming to Mangalore from Kalpeni and was a regular visitor to Mangalore. The police have taken eight persons in the vessel into custody and interrogated them. Four of them were from Gujarat, three from Lakshadweep and one from Kerala. They have been identified as A K Nasir, Kunhi Mohammed, Latheef, Abbas Kareem, Mohammed Haneef, Ayub Ahmed and Salem Mohammed.
Commissioner of Police Seemanth Kumar Singh said, “We have checked the veracity of the statements given by the crew, but we found nothing suspicious on board or among the crew as apprehended.”
Police inspector Vinay Gaonkar who searched the vessel said, “There was a general alert all along the coast and accordingly we will search any vessel which comes under our suspicion. We will continue to search all vessels coming into the old port of Mangalore.
The locals said the MSV Al Jazeera had docked in Mangalore port at 6 am but the search began at 10.30 am.
There was an unruly scene as the Coast Guard officials prevented press photographers from taking photos, but the police intervened to normalise things.
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