Three men in Kuwaiti boat intercepted by coastal police near Mumbai's Gateway of India

A Kuwaiti fishing trawler was suspiciously found roaming off the Mumbai coast on Tuesday. The boat, with three men on board, was intercepted by the patrolling boat of the Yellow Gate police at Prongs Lighthouse, about four nautical miles from the Gateway of India, near Sassoon dock.

The boat as well as the three men were taken to Gateway of India after which the fishing vessel was parked there and the trio were taken to Colaba police station where they were detained for questioning, police said.

3 men hijacked the fishing vessel

The trio, during the probe, told the police that they had hijacked the fishing trawler of their Kuwaiti employer and escaped.

The three apprehended men further revealed that they were taken to Kuwait two years ago by an agent where they were ill-treated and were not paid for the work.

“In those two years, the agent did not pay them for the work they did. As he ill-treated them, they decided to run away with the boat and came to Mumbai,” said an officer.

They also claimed that their passports had been deposited with their Kuwaiti boss.

Who are these three men?

According to a report by Hindustan Times, the three men have been identified as Nitso Ditto (31), J Sayyantha Anish (32) and Enfant Vijay Vinay Anthony (32).

During the questioning, they told the police that they were from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu and had started from Kuwait on 28 January.

“They decided to run away from there as they were neither paid for two years nor given food regularly. Their passports too were confiscated by their employers. They navigated their way to Mumbai with the help of a GPS device, and took 10 days to reach our shores,” the HT report cited Sanjay Latkar, DCP, Port Zone, as saying.

The three men also claimed that they were checked twice en route to Mumbai, Latkar said.

No FIR has been filed against them yet.

What’s next?

Police said the three apprehended men were professional fishermen.

The report quoted a Colaba police officer saying the trio was not giving proper answers as they could neither speak English nor Hindi properly.

“We are yet to decide whether we need to take any action against them. But they are actually victims even though their way of re-entering the country was illegal,” the Colaba police officer added.

Utmost serious incident

Police said the incident was being taken with utmost seriousness because of the 26 November 2008, Mumbai terror attacks when 10 heavily armed Pakistani terrorists hijacked a vessel and reached the commercial capital of India to create mayhem.

All three men were being questioned by the Indian Navy, Coast Guard and Mumbai Police.

With inputs from agencies