Express News Service
AHMEDABAD: The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) caught a Pakistani boat with 10 crew members on board in the Indian waters off the Gujarat coast, a state defence spokesperson said on Sunday.
The boat, named ‘Yaseen,’ was caught by an ICG ship during an operation on Saturday night, the official said.
“The Indian Coast Guard ship Ankit apprehended Pakistani boat ‘Yaseen’ with 10 crew in Indian waters at the Arabian Sea during night ops on 08 Jan. Boat being brought to Porbandar for further interrogation,” the official said in a tweet.
The ICG recovered 2,000 kg of fish and 600 litres of fuel from the ship. The Pakistani crew did not have any documents. They were brought to Porbandar in Gujarat for further investigation, the report added.
This is not the first time a Pakistani boat was apprehended for sailing illegally in Indian waters. Last month, the ICG, in a joint operation with Gujarat ATS, apprehended a Pakistani fishing boat carrying 77 kgs of heroin. The Pakistani boat ‘Al Huseini’ with 6 crew members was caught entering Indian waters with a narcotics cache worth approximately Rs 400 crores.
Smugglers from Pakistan had been trying to use the Gujarat coast as a transit route to transport narcotics to their destination, especially in the last four years. On September 15 last year, the ICG had in a similar operation caught a Pakistani boat with 12 crew members in the Indian waters off the Gujarat coast. There has also been a rise in cases of such boats being used to smuggle drugs to the state.
