NEW DELHI: Indian police said yesterday they had returned to the owner a fishing trawler used by gunmen who attacked Mumbai last November in which nearly 200 people including nine of the attackers were killed.
Mumbai Police Joint Commissioner Rakesh Maria said the boat was handed back to Vinod Masani in the western state of Gujarat following orders of a city court. “We have completed all our investigations and collected evidence that we need from the boat,” Maria said by telephone from Mumbai.
The police say 10 Pakistan-based gunmen hijacked “MV Kuber” in the high seas three days before they attacked two upscale hotels, a Jewish cen-ter and a railway sta-tion on Nov. 26 in Mumbai, India’s financial hub. The gunmen sailed within six nautical miles of Mumbai in MV Kuber and after killing its captain they landed on the city’s shores with the help of a rubber dinghy. Indian police say the gunmen traveled from the Pakistani port city of Karachi on another fishing boat until they reached India’s maritime borders and then hijacked MV Kuber.
Mumbai additional public pros-ecutor E.B. Dhamal said Kuber’s owner had asked a court to order the police to release his trawler.
“After instructing the owner not to sell the boat, the posses-sion of MV Kuber was handed over to Masani on Friday,” the Press Trust of India quoted Dhamal as saying.
Dhamal said the boat could be used as evidence in an ongoing trial against the gunman who is currently in Mumbai police custody.
India is yet to receive any formal request from Pakistan for handing over Ajmal Qasab, the only surviving terrorist responsible for Mumbai attacks. Commenting on a report that said Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik reportedly hinted Islamabad might ask New Delhi to hand over Qasab if necessary for investigation, an Indian official, who asked not to be named, said, “The crime was committed in India. There is no question of handing Qasab to them. In fact, Pakistan should hand over to India suspects they’ve arrest-ed linked to the attack.” Other Indian officials said yes-terday India will ask US to sustain diplo-matic pressure on Pakistan to ensure it brings terrorists behind the Mumbai attacks to justice during talks with US special envoy Richard Holbrooke who arrived in New Delhi last night.
Holbrooke is expected to hold talks with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon today, a spokesman for the Indian Foreign Office said.
The Mumbai terrorist attacks will figure prominently in the discussions and India will stress the importance of keeping up the international pressure on Pakistan to prosecute and pun-ish the perpetrators of the attacks. India has already pre-sented a dossier of evidence that linked the attacks to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group.
— With input from agencies
