Tamil Nadu engineer, four others sent to seven-day police custody

On Friday, officers of the Special Operations Group (SOG) of Devbhumi Dwarka district of Gujarat produced 37-year-old Ashokkumar, his younger brother Anandmukmar Muthurela (35) and three Iranian nationals in a local court in Dwarka town with an application seeking their remand.

The court sent the five accused to police remand for seven days. “The boat doesn’t bear any registration number. Nor does its crew have produced any documents related to the dinghy. Therefore, we are probing further about the boat which was powered by the detachable on-board motor engine,” Nitish Pandey, superintendent of Devbhumi Dwarka district police, told The Indian Express.

Ashokkumar was detained by a joint team of SOG, Local Crime Branch of Devbhumi Dwarka police, and officers of Okha Marine police station in the early hours of Thursday when the dinghy with him and three Iranian nationals aboard approached the under-construction Signature Bridge in Okha harbour.

The three Iranian nationals have been identified as Mustafa Baluchi (38), Jashem Baluchi (25) and Amir Hussain Baluchi (19). They are residents of the port town of Jask in Iran, as per officials. Police say the Iranian nationals are identifying themselves as fishermen.

The SP said that the TN engineer and the three crew members of the boat entered the Okha harbour setting sail from the port of Jask about five-six days ago.

When asked if the four had used any bigger boat to reach the Indian coast from Iran and then shifted to the dinghy, Pandey said, “Prima facie, the boat indeed looks too small for such a long voyage. However, as of now, there is no such information of the sort that they had used some other vessel en route and then shifted to this particular boat.”

Ashokkumar has reportedly told police that he had gone to Muscat in Oman around seven to eight years ago and was working as a mechanical engineer in a firm. In his statement to police, the engineer said he wanted to return to India but his sponsor did not return his passport due to some dispute. Desperate to return to India even without a passport, Ashokkumar, with the help of a person identified as Dr Hussain, a doctor in Iran, managed to cross the Gulf of Oman on board a boat to reach Jask from Muscat.

In Jask, Dr Hussain arranged a boat for the TN engineer with three crew members and the four eventually set sail for Gujarat on the western coast of India, say police. “For the first few days of their voyage, the accused was in touch with Dr Hussain by a satellite phone. In turn, Dr Hussain was keeping Anandkumar updated about the movements of his brother. As he approached the Indian coast, the accused also tried to contact his brother,” said the SP.
Anandkumar, who is an electrical engineer and also works in Muscat, flew to Rajkot on Wednesday and then reached Okha town by road in anticipation of receiving his elder brother. However, he too was arrested by police after Ashokkumar and the Iranian crew were held. The younger brother, as per police, was also part of the conspiracy to facilitate the illegal re-entry of Ashokkumar into India.

The five have been booked under the Foreigners Act, Passport Act and Narcotic Drug and Psychotropic Substances Act.

Police had seized 10 gm of heroin worth Rs 5.01 lakh from Mustafa. Officials also seized one satellite phone, eight mobile phones, two laptops, barrels and cans of petrol, one GPS device, 15 ATM cards, Iranian currency with 2.5 lakh face-value and two passports from the accused. The police have also seized the boat on board which they had been sailing.

Pandey said the attempt at human trafficking via the sea route poses a new challenge to security agencies in Gujarat. “Of late, there have been attempts of smuggling narcotic drugs into India via sea route along the Gujarat coast and one or two cases of smuggling arms. But human trafficking through this route is not common,” the SP said.
“The mere thought that humans can be trafficked in this manner is a challenge to the national security of India,” Pandey further added, expressing concern.