Suspicious North Korean ship detained off Andamans

CHENNAI: The Coast Guard on Thursday detained a ``suspicious'' North Korean ship, which had dropped anchor off Hut Bay in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, after more than six hours of high drama that ended with Indian sailors firing in the air. Officials of Army intelligence, Intelligence Bureau and other agencies are set to inspect the ship and interrogate its occupants.

K R Nautiyal, DIG, Coast Guard, Andaman and Nicobar Region, told TOI over phone that ``several things were amiss'' about merchant vessel MV Musen, which later declared that it was carrying 16,500 tonnes of sugar from Thailand to Umm Qasr in Iraq. ``She shouldn't have dropped anchor here in the first place, she didn't respond to our signals, and her log book was found to be vague,'' Nautiyal said.

North Korean ships have often been found to be involved in ferrying nuclear and missile components for regimes clandestinely seeking to acquire such arsenals. Early on, it was a recipient of clandestine transfers of weapons technology and materials from China. It has since emerged as a major source of proliferation; its alleged clientele include Pakistan, Syria, Iran, and now, Myanmar.

In fact, some years ago, India had detained another North Korean ship that was carrying missile components for Pakistan. Concerns about North Korean vessels have heightened since reports of Pyongyang's help to Myanmar's nuclear bomb-making programme have appeared. Myanmar's nuclear ambitions are also reportedly helped by some Pakistani nuclear scientists.

Musen had dropped anchor off Hut Bay island on Wednesday afternoon for which it had no permission. When Coast Guard ship Kanakalatha Barua approached it, Musen tried to escape, forcing coast guard men to fire in the air. The ship finally ``obeyed'', and was brought to Port Blair early on Thursday.

``We got to know about the ship around 3pm and immediately sent our Dornier. The aircraft flew low above the ship and the port office tried to contact the ship through channel 16, the international VHF used in such cases, but Musen refused to respond. We then sent our ship, which reached the spot around 9pm. As the ship approached, Musen tried to move out. We opened fire twice in the air and only then did Musen obey our orders.
The ship, with 39 people on board, has been brought to Port Blair,'' Nautiyal said.

Indian authorities are also investigating an unscheduled stop the vessel, which left Taem Chabang port in Thailand on July 27, made at Singapore on July 30. ``The vessel started from Singapore on July 31, but no passport stamping was done in Singapore. We are probing this angle too,'' Nautiyal said.

Preliminary inspections found that the vessel was carrying sugar. A detailed inspection will be carried out on Saturday by high-level intelligence officials.

The ship's captain, who had no answers to why he did not respond to coast guard alerts, later told the investigators that the ship, which was bound for Iraq, had made an impromptu change in schedule to take the cargo to Kakinada. ``Merchant vessels do change course sometimes, but there is no satisfactory explanation in this case,'' a coast guard officer said.

However, Interocean, the Delhi-based agent of the ship in India, told TOI that Kakinada was not a port of call for MV Musen on this voyage. ``We came to know about the ship heading towards Kakinada only from the Coast Guard, that too after it was detained. We did not have prior information,'' an Interocean spokesperson said.