Aalam Shaikh, brother of Chief Engineer Rahman Shaikh of the P305 barge, which sank off the Mumbai coast during Cyclone Tauktae, has alleged that its captain did not take the cyclone warning seriously.
He also said that safety equipment and life rafts on the vessel were faulty and that the captain was forced to go ahead given the risks of such rough weather.
Captain Balwinder Singh is one among the 26 people still missing. Mumbai Police filed a case against him on Friday after Rahman Shaikh, the rescued chief engineer of the vessel, lodged a complaint against him.
A furious Aalam Shaikh, who is also a chief engineer, told The Sunday Guardian, “This FIR registered against Captain today is not enough. All those responsible should be booked and hanged to death for killing 49 innocent people. Why did DG Shipping not check the vessels and safety equipment inside properly? Why were warnings ignored by the captain? The captain had been in continuous touch with the owner of the ship and was pressured by the owner to take such a big risk, putting so many lives at stake! A former captain belonging to the company said he had left the job because he had been pressured in the same way. Everyone from the captain to ONGC, the ship owner to charterer, is responsible and should be held accountable.”
Earlier from the Apollo Hospital in Tardeo, a video was released in which chief engineer Rahman Shaikh, who is recovering from his injuries, said, “There was a miscalculation on the captain’s behalf and also the company. Everyone on board barge P305 could have been saved had many of the life rafts not had punctures and the captain had taken the cyclone warnings seriously.”
Aalam Shaikh also said how his brother had alerted the captain multiple times. “The cyclone warning came on the 11th and 12th and that’s when my brother alerted the captain and asked him to leave for harbour. Other vessels in the vicinity also left. But he said that the winds were not expected to cross 40 kmph and the cyclone would cross Mumbai in one or two hours. But in reality the wind speed was more than 100 kmph. Five anchors broke. They couldn’t withstand the cyclone,” he said.
The barge also hit an unmanned oil rig once after which there was a big hole through which water started coming in, said Aalam Shaikh. Life rafts were used but most of them were punctured, he said. Shaikh said that the crew tried to pump out the water but the hole was too big. “When it was out of control, the team went up, where they found that the captain was missing,” he said.
Aalam, who is involved with ship management services, alleged that the vessel was bought as scrap from Malaysia. “Why was such a thing allowed?” he questioned. “Such companies and vessel owners should be blacklisted,” he demanded.