Navy captures hijacked Iranian ship off city coast, 9 detained

The Indian Navy has captured a ‘hijacked’ Iranian flagged cargo vessel, with nine people on board, off the Mumbai coast following intelligence inputs that it may be carrying arms, ammunition and contraband.

Nafis-1, captured on Sunday, was brought to Porbander in Gujarat and the nine men on board are being interrogated.

“It is yet not clear that the nine crew members who have been recovered from the ship Nafis-1 are pirates or crew members of ship,” defence spokesperson Manohar Nambiar said.

The vessel, suspected to have been hijacked, had five Yemenis, two Tanzanians and a Kenyan and a Somalian on board. Upon search, two AK-47 rifles and a pistol were recovered from the ship, Nambiar said.

All of them have been detained. The 500-tonne general cargo vessel was detected on Friday, at a distance of about 250 nautical miles, by Indian Naval Maritime Reconnaissance aircraft ‘IL 38 SD’, which was on a surveillance mission in the East Arabian sea.  
INS Mysore, a guided missile destroyer, was sent to intercept the vessel, along with two helicopters and 24 marine commandos (MARCOS).