‘We had proposed admiralty courts in each state’

Despite the Indian Navy having a southern and western command,why is the Mumbai Police being burdened with the investigation of piracy on high seas? Why not a city in the south?

According to a notification of the Government of India,anything that happens beyond 12 nautical miles on the west coast comes under the jurisdiction of the Yellow Gate police station. The jurisdiction lies in Mumbai as it has an admiralty court. In consonance with the Admiralty Offences (Colonial Act),1849,and the UN Convention of the Law of the Seas,1982,the Navy has handed over the nabbed pirates to us for investigation. However,we have discussed recommending to the Government of India to set up an admiralty court in every state.

How do the Mumbai Police propose to employ its resources to investigate offences of piracy?

Although the investigation in piracy offences may be specialised,the basics remain the same. It takes a lot of coordination between various agencies — Navy,Coast Guard,consulate offices — for these kind of investigations,apart from examining the site of the offence that my team is doing at the moment off Lakshadweep. Fortunately,these instances have been rare and with some help of our sister agencies,we are on the right track.

What are the duties of the police towards the 37 hostages rescued from Prantalay 11 and Vega 5?

Our first responsibility is to get them consular access. Fortunately,a lot of countries have consulates in Mumbai. While we are responsible for their safety and security,it is for the consulate offices to provide them shelter,food and temporary travel documents for their deportation to their country. We try to give them a place to sit and access to washrooms before their embassies take over. A budgetary allocation of Rs 3 lakh for looking after hostages is being deliberated by the government.

Prior to 2010,a piracy operation was carried out only in 2000; it was infrequent. And never before did piracy involve so many deadly weapons. There were 21 AK-47s and two rocket propeller grenades among the recovered weapons. A large part of the cache was thrown into the water by the pirates and that stored at the bottom of the ship was set on fire. The attacks are now as close as 200-300 nautical miles from our coast. Most of the Somali pirates are from large families and poor backgrounds. The civil unrest in their country has led them to piracy,owing to lack of employment. Arms are freely available to them and there is uniform distribution of labour in their operations.

Why is the Arabian Sea becoming the new piracy hub?

Somalia is in North-East Africa and the west coast of the country is landlocked. Since the Arabian Sea is a busy trade route between Europe and countries in the Asia Pacific region,the possibility of a hit on that route is much higher.

When hostages rescued from Prantalay 11 said corpses of two Thai hostages were used to frighten them,why have pirates been spared the murder charge?

We have booked them under various Sections of the IPC,the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act,1967,and the Passport Act,1967. However,in order to ascertain murder,we have not been able to recover any body on the rescued vessel to conduct a post-mortem and find the cause of death. Also no government officer has been killed during the combat.

The issue of translators can be very delicate during trial. How do you select translators?

We are still at the stage of investigation and it does not hinge on confessions. We need translators for interrogation. We made a database of people who speak Somali and found that many garment traders from India visited Somalia for business and could speak the language with ease. We double check the replies of Somalis with more than one translator. However,finding an Ethiopian translator has been difficult.