The fishing boat hijacked by the 10 extremist gunmen who attacked Mumbai in November is to re-enter service later this year, its owner was reported as saying Monday. The MV Kuber has not been at sea since heavily armed militants overpowered its crew and killed its captain, three days before sailing to Mumbai to unleash 60 hours of terror on India's financial and entertainment capital.
The vessel's owner, Vinod Masani, told a Mumbai court trying a Pakistani man alleged to have been one of the 10 gunmen that the boat would sail again from mid-October. "I and my family were so terribly upset over the hijacking of Kuber by terrorists that we decided to withdraw it from fishing until (the Hindu festival of) Diwali," he said, according to a Press Trust of India report. Mumbai police returned the Kuber to its owner in February. It is currently berthed at Porbunder, in the western state of Gujarat.
The body of skipper Amarsingh Solanki was found on board after the boat was discovered floating off the Mumbai coast. Its other four crew members were killed after they were transferred to another vessel, police and the prosecution said in an abridged version of the charge sheet made public earlier this year. The court has heard that that DNA and fingerprints found on board the Kuber exactly match those of the defendant, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, 21, and his fellow attackers.
Kasab is alleged to have beheaded Solanki, "slitting his throat in an absolutely inhuman and ruthless manner, akin to a butcher slaughtering a helpless goat with a knife," the charge sheet said.
Masani told the court in evidence that a number of articles, including ropes, jackets and blankets recovered by police on the boat did not belong to him or his staff. A total of 166 people died and more than 300 others were injured in the November 26-29 attacks. India blames the banned, Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba for training, equipping and financing the operation.
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