Coast guard detains suspicious North Korean ship in Andaman

Portblair, Aug 7 (ANI): The Indian Coast Guard detained a suspicious North Korean ship with 39 crew members on board late on Friday in the Indian Ocean near Andaman and Nicobar Island.

Sources said the ship MV Musen, had dropped anchor off Andaman and Nicobar coast without taking permission from Indian authorities.

The officials of the Integrated Command and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) are investigating the ship and all its crewmembers.

The Indian officials are facing difficulty in communicating with the crew because of the language problem, sources said.

The ship, which had embarked on its journey from Thailand on July 27 with 1,600 tonnes of sugar to be shipped off to Iraq, stopped at Singapore without permission and then moved ahead without proper passport stamping done.

On Friday helicopters of the Coast Guard identified the ship in Indian waters. The ship did not respond to the signals, following which the Coast Guard ships chased the Notrh Korean vessel and made it obey its orders.

Earlier, the ship dropped anchor at Hut Bay without any permission. Even the logbook of the vessel was found to be vague, sources said.

Speaking to media Kripa Nautiyal, Deputy Inspector General of the Coast Guard, at Andaman said, "There is language problem which is delaying the investigations. The vessel may be short of documents that's why they tried to flee the spot."

"We are in touch with ship's agents in India and all people concerned with the vessel are being contacted. We are in possession of the ship and are still probing the ship," DIG Nautiyal added.

North Korea has been accused of transporting nuclear components in the past as well to Pakistan and Iran. Recently, Myanmar also reported to be involved in its nuclear plans the situation has become more alarming. (ANI)