Iranian ship intercepted by navy off Mumbai, reaches Porbander

Mumbai/Ahmedabad, Aug 15 (PTI) The Indian navy has
captured a 'hijacked' Iranian flagged cargo vessel, with nine
persons on board, off the Mumbai coast following intelligence
inputs that it may be carrying arms, ammunition and
contraband, officials said Monday.
Nafis-1, captured yesterday, was brought to Porbander in
Gujarat and the nine men on board are being interrogated.
"Various intelligence agencies including the naval
intelligence are conducting a joint interrogation of the
persons who were found on board," Porbander SP Dipen Bhadran
told PTI.
Defence spokesperson Manohar Nambiar said in Mumbai that
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.
It was not yet clear whether all the nine men were the
crew members, or all of them were pirates, or only some of
them pirates and other crew-members.
All of them had been detained, officials said.
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.

Intelligence inputs suggested that the vessel had sailed
from Chah Bahar in Iran for an unknown location in July.
INS Mysore, a guided missile destroyer, was sent to
intercept the vessel, along with two helicopters and 24 marine
commandos (MARCOS).
Despite adverse weather conditions and rough sea, INS
Mysore launched a swift and co-ordinated operation and there
was no resistance from anybody on the vessel, officials said.
INS Mysore later towed the vessel to Porbander.
In earlier incidents, Gujarat marine police in Junagadh
and Jamnagar had captured 32 Somalian pirates in separate
operations in June.