Thiruvananthapuram:
The Coast Guard has intercepted a suspicious foreign fishing boat about 100 km off the Kerala coast, after inputs from the police that it could be smuggling drugs. The boat along with its crew of 12 has been taken to Vizhinjam and handed over to the state police.
"Investigations are still going on and we haven't completed searching the vessel," Commandant IJ Singh told NDTV.
The alert from Kerala Police had come on Friday, after which the Coast Guard scrambled a Dornier aircraft from its enclave in Kochi to conduct surveillance. Two Coast Guard ships - ICGS Samar and ICGS Abhinav - also set said to carry out surveillance and trail the boat.
The Dornier spotted the craft close to midnight on Friday in rough weather conditions, while the two Coast Guard vessels shadowed it out of its line of sight.
Just before dawn on Saturday, a team from the ICGS Samar boarded the fishing boat, Barooki, which was flying an Iranian flag. Authorities have also found a Thuraya satellite phone and a Pakistani ID on the boat.
Although using a satellite phone in India is not permitted, many ocean-going vessels do use satellite phones to communicate.
The boat and its crew were taken to Vizhinjam, where a joint interrogation is being carried out by the Intelligence Bureau, state intelligence, local police, scientific experts and bomb disposal squad.