The Yellow Gate police have sent a team to the merchant vessel MY Nordlake, docked three kilometres off the Mumbai coast in JNPT area, for questioning the crew about the vessel’s collision with Naval ship INS Vindhyagiri on Sunday which led to the latter’s sinking.
“The captain is on his way. We have not been able to communicate with the team but they are expected by Wednesday,” said Quaiser Kahlid, Deputy Commissioner of Police (port zone). The police have also called in experts to analyse, compare and ascertain the technical evidence collected by the police to reconstruct the exact sequence of events which led to the collision.
“The case is technical, where we have to analyse data from multiple sources. Only after that we will be able to book the accused. The DG shipping department has also started investigations and both the reports would be compared by a team of experts,” said Khalid.
On Sunday night, Lieutenant Commander Sunil Chaturvedi of Vindhyagiri filed an FIR with the police claiming that a rashly navigated vessel collided with the star-board side of the warship and damaged it, injuring people on board in the process.
“We have collected data from the voice recorder system of the ships and also the orders and data logs given by the captains about the movements of the ships,” said Khalid. The police have also received a few video recordings shot by the navy personnel who were present on Vindhyagiri during the collision.
“The families of Navy personnel on board have shot videos of the sequence of events minutes before the collision which would help us during the investigation. However, we will compare the footage with the evidence we have collected and reach a conclusion,” Khalid added.