http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1350490.cms
Explosives sank in sea, says captain
[ Thursday, December 29, 2005 02:22:24 am TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
NEW DELHI: Talking about the loss of a consignment of explosives, a senior government official told TOI: "We are taking this incident very seriously.
That is why a multi-agency team has been formed and is already on the job." The team has experts from the Customs, Indian Navy, Coast Guard, Maharashtra Police and intelligence agencies. Home secretary V K Duggal was coordinating the effort.
The captain and six crew of the ship, MV Eugenia, bound for Bandar Abbas, have been detained and are being questioned by the authorities to ascertain how the explosives went missing after the vessel had set sail from Mumbai last Friday.
Officials in Delhi said the probe would take care of all angles, especially the security one. The explosives were meant for use by the Border Road Organisation (BRO) for blasting rocks and moutainsides for road construction to link Delaram with Kandahar in Afghanistan.
This has been BRO's most difficult project with opposition from the Taliban remnants operating with help from across the Afghan border with Pakistan.
A BRO employee, M R Kutty, was killed last month and the personnel now operate with enhanced security by the Afghan personnel and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).
According to reports, the Navy and Coast Guard located the vessel just off Mumbai coast on Friday and towed it back under escort.
The captain claimed the explosives had sunk in the sea in rough weather, officials said. A search has been launched for the shipping agent who had booked the explosives.
Director of the shipping company, Unimarine Ltd, Samsu Sheroff, claimed that about six hours after the vessel set sail, it encountered a very choppy sea and the master of the ship reported that one of the containers on the deck got loose and might have fallen into the sea.
He said the master again sent a message to the owner of the ship on Friday saying one container had already been lost.
When the ship was asked the next day to return to Mumbai, the master, while turning the ship around, reported that the other five containers on board were also lost.
"So, the entire cargo meant for Bandar Abbas from where that was to go Afghanistan for the BRO was lost," a Mumbai report quoted Sheroff as saying.
Maintaining that the cargo had been lost in the sea, he claimed that it was very much lying on the sea bed.
No, it is lying from the deck of a ship.