Spending every minute in terror, say Somalia captives

Spending every minute in terror, say Somalia captives

By SNV Sudhir

Visakhapatnam, July 10: The eight Vizagites, seven Indians and a Nepali a resident of Vizag for the past decade, held captive in Somalia are living in constant fear amid a lorry load of bullets, ten sophisticated guns and two armed men. They are terrified as they cannot assess the gunmen’s next move. They had to depend upon the starch to satisfy their hunger. Speaking exclusively to Deccan Chronicle on phone from Somalia, the skipper of the crew S A Raju said that they were sent to work on this trawler by Pramod Ranjan of Chennai and Murali Krishna of Visakhapatnam. They were not provided proper food, water and medical facilities for the past 10 months. He said that twater was provided in diesel drums, which was not at all potable. The gunmen often opened fire in air if the captives were reluctant regarding food, water and medicines.“Shut up if u want to drink this water drink, otherwise die, these are the words we had to hear daily,” Riyaz a engineer in the crew said in a distressed mood. According to them they are one and half mile away from the actual shore. “ We cannot run away from here, we totally confused,” Raju said. The captives tried to speak to Pramod Ranjan but had to hear the same old dialogues of negotiations from him. “ We called up Pramod many times, but he never tried to call us back,” Raju said.To add to their misery, the captive crew had to daily bail out the water from the trawlers as their trawlers has holes, and if this situation continued they had to face a major problem of sinking. They are forced to cook their food with coal even though the captives warned the gunmen that the trawler may catch fire. They also said that 2 of the captives who had been working for two years were not paid a single rupee and similar was the plight of the other captives who were working for 10 months.Raju and Riyaz said that the eight were held captive in two fishing trawlers MF Nekkanti I and II. They said that they received two calls from the police of Visakhapatnam. The armed men belong to Abdullah Ali Mohammed of Dubai, they added. Raju pleaded with the government to help them come out of the situation. The Police Commissioner, V S K Kaumudi said, "We have already informed the State Home Department and the Central Government about the case and we have also done some local enquiries. We have tried to contact the captives. The Special Branch of Police are looking into the case.