Monday, January 5, 2015

Coast Guard and the Burning Boat

In an operation on new year night Coast Guard intercepted a boat which was being tracked for some time using wireless intercepts.  When challenged the boat is said to have tried to evade CG ship and out maneuver it. When CG ship fired gunshots to warn the boat the occupants said to have put boat on fire. Since the CG ship was in the vicinity and it did not see any body jumping off the boat, it is presumed that the occupants also were burnt with the boat which sank.

To me it  sounded like an open and shut case. To my surprise as the time passed, various theories started doing rounds. Some were laughable, some absurd and some were pure political.

Some one said, why navy was not involved? Interesting. First of all the nearest unit is the best unit to  act in such situation. Also patrolling Sea boundary  between India and Pakistan is the charter of CG. Also to handle a small boat as was indicated, a CG ship was fully equipped. They had all the necessary weapons. Why was navy required? Navy is overall incharge of coastal security
but primary execution of the task is done by marine police up to certain distance from the coast followed by CG and finally by the Navy.

Second theory doing round was they were mere smugglers who, when cornered,  set their boat on fire. It is laughable. Are terrorist demons and smugglers saints? Terrorists are a shade worst than smugglers. In any case the laws of our land, based on British jurisprudence are such that simplest for a smuggler is to surrender with or without contraband.  All that would happen to them is they would soon be bailed out and case would go on. So, there is no need for a smuggler to destroy his boat.

If and only if there is a worry that if caught very stringent laws will be applicable and / or it may result in severe embrassment to some powers that be, the need to blow up the boat and self with it arises.

Some one on a TV channel said that the fire looked of diesel fuel. May be,  but I wish the classification was so simple. In any case even explosive fire post explosion would look like any other fire. Also when a boat burns the fuel in its fuel tank is also expected to burn. Poor fuel on-board has no option.

Most absurd that came was from a political party,  that too a major one. One of their first time MP wanted to know why there are no bodies found? It almost sounded as if it is a police investigation of a murder being discussed where finding a victim's body is very important for the case. Did the MP have some police background? Possibly he did not know that as per international laws the CG ship was duty-bound to search for survivors and found none. It is thus presumed that the occupants went down with the boat. The ocean depth in that area may be beyond 50 m or more. The bodies can be recovered only if a operation to takeout the boat from the bottom is done. Even after that action,  the bodies would be all nearly destroyed due  to exposure to sea water as salvage may take a long time.

Finally someone demanded that why the communication intercepts cannot be made public. Well that's governments call to take and also as long as  the intercepts have some useful value they should be kept secret.

I find it funny. When forces don't take action we curse them,  when they take we talk everything including human rights, where is the proof, that they were poor smugglers, etc.

Will we ever stop becoming 'miss doubtfire'  and learn to stand by our forces, Defence as well as police. We need to change and change faster else there will be repeated of various terriost acts yet again. 

No comments:

Post a Comment