Abduction of 5 sailors: Ship owner passes buck on to agent

Sushil Manav 

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 19

The abduction of five Indian sailors, including Ankit Hooda from Haryana, by sea pirates in Nigeria has taken a new twist as an email by the ship owner to an Indian manning agent suggests that their “immigration” could be a case of human trafficking whereby they were taken to Ghana for a job on fake documents.

The contents of the email are phrased in such a manner that it gives the impression that the ship owner could be trying to wash his hands of the responsibility to pay ransom to the pirate for the release of Indian seamen.

After receiving a copy of the email sent on Saturday to Nigerian manning agent Shailesh Singh and his collaborators in India by ship owner’s company Petronav Carriers LLC, a Piraeus (Greece)-based shipping company, Ankit’s family has approached the police in Rohtak for action against the agents.

Ankit, according to his family members, was working as Ordinary Seaman (OS) on the Greece motor tanker ship MT Apecus when pirates struck on the outer anchorage of Bonny island of Nigeria on April 19. The captain and six other crew members were taken hostage. Five 

of them are from India.

“Our people in Ghana are preparing an affidavit of the facts for the five Indian personnel you brought in Ghana without any request or approval from our side to employ them in any of our vessels. As a matter of fact the time you sent them to our office in Tema (Ghana), our people found all your personnel with fake documents and made the assessment that they never worked as seamen,” said the email.

“Our office also reported that your five personnel were riding around the area of Tema for days without food and in a dirty condition. In view of our rejection to embark them on vessels, you started begging to allow them to board a vessel and allow food and a place to sleep as passengers till you repatriate them within reasonable time,” the email further said.

The ship company has also accused the manning agency of not responding to its repeated notices that the five personnel were unable to perform any job.

The company has also accused the agent of duping it of 1.5 million naira (nearly 4,200 dollars) by assuring that he would source the hijackers’ location and rescue the five Indian personnel, but he allegedly did not do anything. 

“Ankit paid a sum of Rs 4.5 lakh to a Delhi-based agent for this job. Now, this email shows that he and the other four might have been victims of a human trafficking racket. We have given our complaint to the police and are waiting for action against the agents,” said Ankit’s cousin Bharat Deshwal. 

Human trafficking angle surfaces 

• “Our people in Ghana are preparing an affidavit of the facts for the five Indian personnel you brought in Ghana without any request or approval from our side to employ them in any of our vessels. As a matter of fact the time you sent them to our office in Tema (Ghana), our people found all your personnel with fake documents and made the assessment that they never worked as seamen,” says the Greece-based shipping company to email Nigerian manning agent Shailesh Singh and his collaborators in India. 
• The contents of the email suggest that the “abduction” could be a case of human trafficking whereby the five so-called seamen were taken to Ghana for a job on fake documents.