- Thursday, October 10, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE Indian Coast Guard (ICG) on Saturday (8) apprehended a Pakistani boat carrying 10 crew members in the Indian waters off the coast of the western state of Gujarat, a state defence spokesperson said on Sunday (9).
The boat, named ‘Yaseen’, was caught by ‘Ankit’, a ship of the ICG during an operation on Saturday night, the spokesperson added.
“The Indian Coast Guard ship Ankit apprehended Pakistani boat ‘Yaseen’ with 10 crew in Indian waters at Arabian Sea during night ops on 08 Jan. Boat being brought to Porbandar for further interrogation,” the official said in a tweet.
On September 15 last year, the ICG had caught a Pakistani boat in a similar operation with 12 crew members on board, also off the Gujarat coast.
There has been a rise in cases of such boats being used to smuggle drugs through the state coast, the Press Trust of India reported.
Last month, a Pakistani fishing boat with six people and carrying 77 kilograms of heroin worth around Rs 400 crore was caught near the Gujarat coast by the ICG in a joint operation with the state anti-terrorist squad.
In November 2008, a group of terrorists had reached the city of Mumbai in a boat from Pakistan and carried out a mayhem, killing more than 100 people, including foreign nationals.
