An ever-present trust deficit and the resultant sense of rivalry between India and Pakistan has been a permanent source of trouble for the people living across the border. Seafarers happen to be among those who suffer routinely from almost a persistent diplomatic strain between the two South Asian nuclear-armed neighbours.
It is no secret that the seamen from Pakistan and India are never allowed to even step onto each other's ports. No matter how many days a vessel would be taking for being loaded or unloaded at any of the two countries' ports, no crewman can disembark from his ship.
A ship with Indian crew aboard remains under strict surveillance at Pakistani ports and vice versa. The security check on such ships, calling at Karachi Port and Port Qasim, is said to be so strict that even the local stevedoring staffers are not allowed to take their mobile phones aboard.
It goes without saying that same is the situation at Indian ports where no Pakistani crew is allowed, mainly for security reasons, to get off the ship or at most go outside the port area. Latest is the case of two Pakistani crewmen who were boarding the ill-fated container vessel, MSC Chitra, which got damaged on August 7 after its collision with another, MV Khalijia, in Indian territorial waters.
Industry sources told Business Recorder that the ship carried two Pakistani seafarers, Zahid Hussain Shah and Muhammad Islam, working as second engineer and electrical officer respectively. Thanks to the anti-seafarers laws in India, the two Pakistanis initially had to spend some days at a barge near Mumbai Port after being denied permission to go outside the port by the Indian authorities.
"Being Pakistani nationals they can not go out of the port," they said adding that for staying in a hotel outside the port, seamen from the two countries required a "special approval" of the directorate of immigration. Currently Shah and Islam are in good health at Mumbai Port and would be flying back home after the completion of investigations, most probably by tomorrow, the sources said. "The two seamen are in port compound area at Mumbai Port."
Ironically, none of the officials at the office of Director General Ports and Shipping could provide this reporter with information about the fate of the two countrymen. "It is not our domain as it (MSC Chitra) is not our flag-ship... we (however) will facilitate them as a matter of courtesy," Director General Ports and Shipping, S M Zaidi told Business Recorder.
According to unconfirmed reports, at least 25 to 30 containers, most of which have fallen into the sea, were bound for Pakistan. While the sources at local office of MSC Shipping Line (MSL) said only four Pakistan-bound containers were aboard. Whereas the local traders from KCCI refused to own any of the TEUs at MSC Chitra, the sources at MSL believe that the cargo might belong to the importers from upcountry.
According to sources at Pakistan International Container Terminal, the said ship had a trend of bringing sufficient number of "import-full" containers to Pakistan. They said MSC Chitra had brought at least 100, 90 and 25 containers along with hundreds of empty containers (for exportable cargo) respectively in its last, second last and third last voyage to PICT.
The ill-fated ship with over 1,200 containers aboard is at present dangerously tilted by 70 degrees close to Mumbai Port and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust. With some dangerous material like oil and pesticide aboard, the vessel is reportedly posing an environmental threat to the two Indian ports, which remained shut for days after the accident.
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