Says owner; Crews’ families tell of ransom demands
The families of two crew of hijacked ship MV Jahan Moni yesterday claimed that the pirates demanded ransoms for their release. But the figures vary wildly.
Mohammad Shahjahan, owner of the hijacked ship, contradicted them saying the pirates had not yet demanded any ransom.
He said the captain of the ship told him over the phone that all 26 Bangladeshis on board the vessel are in good health.
Urmila Sharmin, wife of Abul Bashar, 28, second engineer of the ship, said the pirates demanded $9 million, while Bilkis Rahman, the mother of another crew, said the abductors demanded Tk 900 crore.
Urmila said her husband called her at about 10:00pm from the phone of a pirate and said the pirates asked him to pay a ransom of $9 million as soon as possible.
Bashar talked to her for nearly three minutes and said the ship would run out of food and fuel in five days.
Earlier, the ship owner claimed that the vessel had a stock of food and fuel for the crew for two months.
The pirates hijacked the Bangladesh-flagged ship in the Arabian Sea off the coast of India on December 5.
Bilkis Rahman, mother of engine cadet Md Shahriar Rabbi, 21, said her son called her at about 10:10am yesterday and said the pirates had confined the crew to the navigation deck.
She said Rabbi sobbed during the 10-minute conversation. He told her that they were allowed to use only one toilet.
“Please rescue us. Tell the government to do something, otherwise the pirates will torture us,” she quoted her son as saying.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Shahjahan, owner of SR Shipping Ltd, said the pirates allowed the ship’s Chief Engineer Motiul Maola and his wife Roksana to talk to him over the phone at about 2:30pm. The two told him that all the crewmembers were in good health.
Shahjahan, also chairman of Royal Shipping Ltd, told journalists that the prates made two phone calls — one at 2:30pm and another at 7:00pm. He was speaking at a press conference at his office in Agrabad in the port city last night.
He said 24 Somali pirates held control of the ship.
The pirates hijacked the Bangladesh-flagged ship in the Arabian Sea off the coast of India on December 5.
