The Indian Navy has nabbed 61 pirates and rescued 13 crew members of a mother vessel called Vega 5 on Saturday night. According to a Navy press release, INS Kalpeni intercepted the pirate mother vessel in the Arabian sea about 600 nautical miles west of India.
On March 11, a Naval Dornier aircraft while responding to a call from MV Vancouver Bridge under pirate attack, located Vega in the area. Seeing the naval aircraft, the pirates immediately aborted their piracy attempt and the mother vessel attempted to escape from the area.
While the maritime patrol aircraft of the Navy continuously tracked the pirate mother vessel and Indian Naval ships Khukri and Kalpeni which were already deployed on anti-piracy patrol, were diverted to intercept the vessel.
On Saturday night, the pirate mother vessel launched two skiffs which fired at Kalpeni. INS Kalpeni responded with limited firing. Personnel were also seen jumping overboard. INS Kalpeni in conjunction with INS Khukri recovered 74 personnel including 61 pirates and 13 members of the original crew of the fishing vessel.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the pirates were carrying about 80 to 90 small arms/rifles and a few heavier weapons (likely to be RPGs).
Vega 5, a Mozambique-flagged fishing vessel was hijacked on December 28 and has been used as ‘mother vessel’ for piracy operations. This vessel had been a risk to international shipping for last four months and has carried out several attacks.
Naval ships and aircraft are presently in the area searching for any other fishermen/pirates.
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Southeastern Arabian sea is a focal point of international traffic and the security of these sea lanes in the Arabian Sea is critical to the flow of global trade. In addition to the anti-piracy patrols being sustained in the Gulf of Aden since October 2008, in view of the dangers from vessels such as Vega 5, the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard have been maintaining vigil west of the Lakshadweep Islands in the last four months.
This has proved effective and piracy incidents in this area have seen a 60 per cent decline since December 2010, according to the statement.
The Indian Navy has already apprehended two pirate mother ships on January 28 and February 5 this year in the Arabian Sea. A total of 43 pirates had been caught in these incidents, the statement added.