New Delhi: On the night of 2 November, Manoj Kumar Arora woke up to a call at his home in Govind Nagar, Uttar Pradesh. It was his 26-year-old son, Roshan, on the line.
“I remember him saying, ‘Papa, please sit with Ma so she can hear this as well. The crew and I have been arrested in Nigeria. We have been accused of some very serious crimes’,” Arora told ThePrint.
Since August this year, 16 Indian sailors aboard oil tanker MT Heroic Idun have been in detention, first in Equatorial Guinea and now in Nigeria, for alleged oil theft, among other charges. They remain on the ship until the next case hearing on 10-11 January in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
On Monday, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar raised the issue in the Lok Sabha, saying the crew had been charged on three counts, and that the Indian government was “providing them legal support and consular support”.
The sailors’ families have welcomed the minister’s remarks but requested the government to help expedite the hearings, and ensure the families are able to contact the crew more frequently.
Director General of Shipping Amitabh Kumar told ThePrint: “We have been in touch with the families. This is obviously not an ideal situation, but it is a wait-and-watch scenario until the hearing in January.”
ThePrint reached out to the Nigerian High Commission in New Delhi with queries, but had not received a response at the time this report was published.
On 25 November, the sailors’ families as well as members of the National Union of Seafarers of India (NUSI) staged a protest outside the Nigerian High Commission against the “illegal detention” of the crew.
The union submitted a petition to the High Commission demanding the sailors’ immediate release, but is yet to receive an official response.
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Out-of-court settlement ‘unlikely’
Norwegian oil tanker MT Heroic Idun has been accused of attempting to steal crude oil at the Akpo oilfield in Nigeria. The ship’s crew was first arrested on 12 August by authorities in Equatorial Guinea after the vessel was found sailing through the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
According to a statement from ship captain Tanuj Mehta, a surveillance vessel claiming to be from the Nigerian Navy had approached the tanker at the time, but suspecting it was a pirate vessel, MT Heroic Idun fled the scene.
Shipping company sources said a fine of Rs 16 crore had been paid to the Equatorial Guinea authorities in September for sailing through the EEZ. However, on 11 November, Equatorial Guinea handed MT Heroic Idun over to the Nigerian authorities.
According to Metilda Sanu, wife of the ship’s Chief Officer, the families were informed by OSM Group, the manager for MT Heroic Idun, that they were trying for a settlement outside court, but this did not come to fruition.
“We were informed earlier that the shipping company would try to negotiate a settlement outside of the court and bring the crew back to India before Christmas. But it seems nothing worked out. The crew is going through a lot of trauma. Our patience is wearing thin,” Sanu told ThePrint.
Meanwhile, the wife of the ship’s captain, Sapna Trehan Mehta, urged the Indian government to help expedite the hearings and trial in the case, as the crew has been in detention for over four months.
“We are thankful for the minister’s remarks, but are requesting the government to expedite the case and future hearings. We had asked why the hearing was not set earlier in December, but were told that courts in Nigeria are shut for the holidays,” she said.
Currently, crew members get access to their mobile phones every 15 days for five minutes and are allowed to speak to their families only in English.
Nigeria’s history of pirate attacks, oil theft
MT Heroic Idun’s crew has been accused by the Nigerian Navy of attempting to deal in crude oil without a licence or authorisation, and of two other offences.
Sources said the crew members have pleaded not guilty on all three counts.
In a statement on 15 November, Rear Admiral Saidu Garba of Nigeria referred to the crew’s claims about piracy as a “smear campaign” against Nigeria that sought to gain international sympathy.
Cornelius Gabriel, a lawyer with Nigerian firm Olisa Agbakoba Legal, explained that Nigeria has been on a “frantic effort” to clean up the twin troubles of piracy attacks and oil theft in recent years.
“Nigeria, being the biggest economy in Africa, accounts for most of the vast resources and shipping traffic in the area, and most of the attacks are traceable to its territorial waters which a frantic effort is being made to clean up,” Gabriel said in an email to ThePrint.
“Also, the bane of crude oil theft is one thing biting so hard in the economy of Nigeria and Nigeria has opened her red eyes on these acts,” he added.
In October this year, it was discovered that an illegal connection line from one of Nigeria’s major oil export terminals had been operating undetected for nine years.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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