MV Rak captain,engineer held

Captain Arkan Abdul Younis,36,and chief engineer Ioneseu Ion,54,have been particularly booked and arrested as they were directly responsible for the vessel,according to the investigating officer Atmaram Bhoite.

On August 4,the 30 crew members mostly Indonesians 21 Jordanians 6 and two Romanians and one Palestinian were brought to the Yellow Gate police station after they were 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 officials.

According to Younis,the water had initially reached the decks around 8 pm on Wednesday,though as a temporary measure it was pumped out. The next morning,even as the rest of the crew were just waking up around 6 am,the captain noticed that the forecastle,the structure near the bow of the vessel,was submerging with water slowly sinking the area where the coal is stored in holds. The water started coming on the deck from one of the coal holds. I dont know how that happened, Younis had said on Thursday as he waited for his crews passports to be processed. We questioned them for hours and now are fairly convinced there is some share of negligence shown by the captain and the engineer, said an officer.