Piracy in the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, has reached such an extent that scientists of the ministry of earth sciences are hiring the services of private armed guards to protect their expensive tsunami data buoys and bottom pressure recorders installed in the region.
Both Indian Navy and Coast Guard have told us about their inability in protecting these tsunami buoys on a round-the-clock basis. We can also understand their limitations because they have much important work to attend to, a top scientist in the ministry told DNA.
The disclosure comes after the shoot out from an Italian oil tanker resulting in the death of two fishermen off the Kerala Coast.
The Italian crew claim that they were forced to open fire because their ship came under attack by pirates. We have deployed 12 data buoys along the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. In December 2010 itself we had lost two of the data buoys. Replacing or repairing a single data buoy costs more than Rs45 lakh, said Dr MA Atmanand, director, National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai. He said the Makran Coast along the Arabian Sea was a safe haven for pirates.
The top scientist agreed that the entire Indian Ocean region, including the Bay of Bengal was infested with pirates.
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