Patrol boats too slow, pirates speed away

Tag : Nylon Ropes


Mumbai, July 6

Mumbai Police have hired 3 boats from fishermens society, maximumspeed is 16 nautical miles per hourequivalent to 28 kmph on land
The Mumbai Police seem to be at sea, rather literally, as far asthe speed of their patrol boats are concerned.
Three major cases along Mumbais shores in the last two months haveexposed the Achilles heel of the force as their boats cannot gobeyond 15 nautical miles per hour, allowing criminals with fastermachines to get away easily. Officers say there have been many morecases in the last six months when the patrol boats could not givecriminals a good chase but were not recorded.
Mumbai Police have three boats on hire from the fishermen societywhich are used for joint patrols with the Customs Department. Thestate government has four more boats stationed near Raj Bhawan andthe Bhabha Atomic Research Centre but they are not available forpatrolling. All of them are about three years old and crawl, withtheir maximum speeds translating to about 28 kmph on land.
Not only does the department need more boats but the existing onesneed to be urgently upgraded, one senior IPS officer, who did notwant to be named, told Newsline. Crime along the Mumbai coastusually involves cargo vessels being attacked by men in three tofour speedboats, he added.
The patrolling officers return empty-handed after failing to givea good chase. Furthermore, we chase them in one boat when attackerswho surround the vessel spread and flee in different directions atspeeds which cannot be matched, he said. Another senior officercompared the situation to a cycle behind a sports vehicle.
For instance, according to a case first registered at the YellowGate police station, criminals fled with steel balls from a ISPATvessel in April and could not be chased. Last month, according toanother case registered at the same station, officers gave upchasing robbers after pursuing them for seven km as they could notkeep up with them.
The big embarrassment, however, came on May 30 when two vessels ofthe state-run Maharashtra Maritime Board, Sarangini and Vashisht,were attacked near Thal village in Alibaug and surrounded from allsides. Stones were pelted at the decks of both vessels and therobbers made away with expensive nylon ropes and large quantitiesof diesel.
One officer said the force could hope for speedboats only after thecoastal security plan is implemented in full. Thane Rural police,who patrol the coast from Dahanu to Vasai, also face a similarproblem as they do not have speed boats either, he said, and addedthat the average speed of patrol boats used by the Coast Guard isaround 25 nautical miles per hour with a maximum speed of 38nautical miles per hour.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Administration) B D More said he wasnot aware of the problem. If there is a concern with speed then wewill look into it. No one has approached me yet, he said.