New Delhi:
On a breezy March morning in Delhi, 45-year-old Mehtab Jahan is seated on a pavement in Delhi outside the offices of the Shipping Ministry, where she has spent the night.
Like 10 others around her, she is here to ask the government to help with the release of 17 Indians on board the MT Royal Grace, a Nigerian- owned tanker that was taken hostage a year ago by pirates off the coast of Somalia.
Mehtab Jahan has travelled to Delhi from Allahabad. "My son is 27 years old. He has two little children who miss him and are constantly asking about their father. Nothing I say can reassure them," she says, a shawl draped around her head.
Till mid-December, the shipping company was negotiating with the pirates. Then, the talks ended abruptly. Since then, the families of those taken hostage have not heard from their relatives. Earlier, conversations used to be conducted on satellite phones with the help of the shipping company's negotiators.
Rajesh Kumar's brother is 24 and works as a cadet on the ship. "When we meet officers from the Shipping Ministry, they tell us to go to the Ministry of External Affairs. And they tell us to speak to the Shipping Ministry. The fate of our young boys hangs in the balance."
Mehtab Jahan says, "This time we will sit for as long as it takes to get answers. Even if that means we have to die here."
(Names of hostages have not been revealed at the request of the families)