Two Indians on board hijacked Singapore ship

Indian High Commissioner in Singapore T C A Raghavan is in close touch with the Singapore government as well as the shipping company over the issue, the sources said.

They said that two Indians are among the crew-members of the ship MV Kota Wajar, which was hijacked on Thursday. The shipping company is also touch with the Singapore government and efforts are being made to secure the release of the ship along with the people on board, the sources said.

Earlier, confusion prevailed over whether there was any Indian on board the ship with media reports suggesting that there were four Indians in the carrier.

The ship was seized by the pirates on October 15 in the Indian Ocean about 500 kilometers north of the Seychelles island. Abdulgani Y Serang, general secretary, National Union of Seafarers of India, said in Mumbai that the crew members of the vessel were from countries like Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Pakistan.

Dipika Pathania, wife of Raghuveer Singh, one of the Indians on board the ship, said the company informed that the crew is safe but did not say when they will be freed.

"We don't want money. I just want my husband to be freed. The ship owners won't act until we put pressure. They don't care about the crew members," Pathania told CNN-IBN.

Saroj Dev Singh, brother of another Indian on board, said, "I spoke to the Singapore office in the morning. They told me that everyone is safe on the ship and it has reached Somalia. They said that they are trying to speak to the pirates."

Somalia has been ravaged by violence and anarchy since 1991 and piracy has flourished off its coast, making the Gulf of Aden one of the most dangerous waterways in the world. Pirate attacks around the world have more than doubled to 240 during the first six months of 2009 compared with the same period last year.