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Abducted Indian ship crew return

by Sanjay Jha | November 23, 2008 at 11:08 pm

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Five members of the Indian crew of a Japanese ship MV Stolt Valor, who were taken hostage and released after ransom was paid to pirates,have arrived in India and the reamining of the Indian crew including the captain of the ship, Prabhat Goyal will arrive later on Monday. MV Stolt Valor, with 22 crew members including 18 Indians, was hijacked by a group of Somali pirates off the Yemen coast on September 16, while it was bound for Mumbai from the Suez Canal.

he two-month ordeal of the 18 Indian sailors onboard the hijacked Stolt Valor merchant ship, finally ended on Monday when five of them safely reached Mumbai at 6.00 this morning.Captain of the ship, Prabhat Goyal, and the remaining Indian crew members will return later this week.

The cargo ship, owned by a Japanese company and managed by Fleet Marine Ltd in Mumbai, was hijacked by the armed Somali pirates on September 15. The hijackers had demanded a ransom of USD 6 million for the release of the crew and had later brought the amount down to USD 2.5 million.

The ship was freed on November 16 after being in captivity for two months when Somali pirates released the vessel in the Gulf of Aden following payment of an unspecified amount of "ransom".

National Union of Seafarers of India (NUSI) general secretary Abdul Ghani, along with the retuned crew members, held a press conference to express his gratitude to the Indian government and the media. He said that pirates are nothing short of maritime terrorists.