The Indian Navy ship INS Cankarso exchanged fire with a pirate vessel after two skiffs deployed from the ship were spotted on Friday morning near the Lakshadweep Isles. Fifteen pirates were taken into custody, and the ship recovered 20 fishermen of Thai and Myanmarese nationality, who were the original crew of the fishing vessel.
The skiffs were originally tracked by the coast guard and the Indian Naval Dornier aircraft, which retreated to the ‘mother pirate’ vessel Prantalay, which had been hijacked in April 2010.
The INS Cankarso (a recently commissioned water jet fast attack craft), which was already deployed in the area for anti-piracy patrol, was directed to intercept and investigate Prantalay.
The INS Cankarso initially fired a warning shot ahead of the bows of the pirate vessel to halt its progress on a westerly course. Instead of stopping, however, Prantalay opened fire on the naval ship. INS Cankarso returned limited fire in self-defence.
A fire broke out on the pirate vessel, after which several personnel were seen jumping overboard. The INS Cankarso was subsequently joined by INS Kalpeni and ICGS Sankalp. Naval and coast guard ships and aircraft are presently in the area searching for any other fishermen or pirates. This incident comes soon after a Bangladeshi-flagged merchant vessel was apprehended last month near Indian waters.
The Indian ambassador to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, had recently presented a five-point action plan to combat the menace of piracy to the Security Council of the United Nations. In addition to the anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since October 2008, the Indian Navy and the coast guard have been maintaining vigil west of the Lakshadweep Islands, and carrying out search operations for the past couple of months. This has kept international shipping lanes in this region safe from piracy attacks, with piracy incidents seeing a 75 percent decline since December 2010.
The south-eastern 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.
Source: www.dnaindia.com
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