04 Aug 11: In spite of the tight coastal guard security on the Indian coastal lines after the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, an abandoned ship has beached in to Mumbai’s Juhu sea front. The total Navy security staff have no clue as how this ship can be beached in to the Indian coast, escaping the navy, the coast guard security and the marine police.
This abandoned ship is identified as MT Pavit, which was found missing from the coast of Oman around July 1st. The Dubai based owner of this vessel has announced that it was sunk. But the 13 member crew of this vessel was rescued by MV Jag Pushpa, an Indian merchant vessel after it has received an SOS. After this due to heavy winds and monsoons, the vessel drifted about 700 nautical miles eastwards and reached Juhu on July 29, escaping many merchant liners, navies operating in Arabian Sea and the India’s three tier coastal security system.
The navy officials have viewed that it is surprising how this vessel can reach the West coast. They have said that 35 percent of the navy staff has been deployed on the coast after it was found that terrorists have traversed through Karachi evading the Indian security agencies and reached South Mumbai. High technology electronic monitoring system was bought spending thousands of crores. The navy officials also have proposed to acquire a NC3I system (naval command, control, communications and intelligence system), which is yet to be approved by the center, though approved by all the coastal states. However, they have said that due to the bad weather and continuous rains, the detection by radar systems was weak.
Recently, another vessel, MV Wisdom was caught beaching in the Mumbai coast. Taking in to consideration all the above situations, the central government has announced that it will take extra security measures such as, improving surveillance mechanism, enhance patrolling, streamlining intelligence systems by creating joint operation centers and multi agency coordination system, installation of radars across the entire coastal line and islands, etc.
Source: Telegraphindia.com