Rak Carrier captain,chief engineer arrested

Investigating officer Atmaram Bhoite said captain Arkan Abdul Younis (36) and chief engineer Ioneseu Ion (54) were arrested as “they were directly responsible for the vessel.”

On August 4,the 30 crew members — mostly Indonesians (21) Jordanians (6) and two Romanians,one Palestinian were brought to the Yellow Gate police station after each sailor was winched and rescued from the sinking coal carrier. Younis and Ion were separately questioned by the police after they got assistance from officials from Sea Port wing of the Mumbai police and the Naval officers.

According to Younis,the water had initially reached the decks around 8 pm on Wednesday,though it was pumped out as a “temporary measure”. The next morning,even as the rest of the crew were just waking up around 6 am,the captain noticed that the forecastle,a structure near the bow of the vessel,was slowly submerging and water sinking the area in which the coal is stored in holds. “The water started coming on the deck from one of the coal holds. I don’t know how that happened,” Younis had said on Thursday as he waited for his crew’s passports to be processed.

“We questioned them for hours and now are fairly convinced that there is some share of negligence shown by the captain and the engineer. While the captain is responsible for the overall safety of the crew and the ship,the engineer is responsible for the entire machinery. The probe is in progress. Prime facie it can be said a few of the pumps,including the blast pump,were not used at the right time and had failed. The water then got stuck through the night and could not escape and eventually took the vessel down,” an officer said.

The two were produced at the Ballard Pier court. The Directorate General of Shipping,meanwhile,has asked for proper arrangements for the rest of the crew and the police station has asked the agents to get the crew booked into hotels. Earlier,a few Pakistani sailors who were rescued had to live in the compound of Yellow Gate Police Station after a bureaucratic goof-up that showed them as accused instead of rescued.