Udupi, Jan 15: It’s just a case of hoping, a relative of the one of the missing fishermen said. Hope is tenacious but it is starting to fade now for the families of seven fishermen on board Suvarna Tribhuja boat that ventured into sea from Fisheries Harbour on December 13 and went missing off the Goa coast on December 15.
Two fishermen on the boat are from Udupi, the remaining five are from Uttara Kannada. The missing fishermen are: Chandrashekhar Kotian, 40, owner and captain of the boat; Damodar Salian, 40, both from Udupi; Laxman, 45, Sathisha, 35, Harish, 28, Ramesh, 30, from Kumta, and Ravi, 27, from Manki. A missing complaint was lodged at the Malpe police station on December 22.
Shyamala, wife of Mr. Chandrashekhar Kotian, and Mohini, wife of Mr. Damodar Salian, have been distraught since the boat went missing.
A teary-eyed Suvarna Thingalaya, father of Mr. Damodar Salian, said that his eyes are always looking towards the gate of his house.
“I keep hoping that he will come today or tomorrow. Damodar’s wife Mohini does not even have her meals properly. Damodar has nearly two-and-a-half decade experience of working on boats,” he said.
Ganesh Kotian, brother of Mr. Chandrashekhar Kotian, said his sister-in-law, Shyamala, is too sad to talk to anybody. “We keep consoling her,” he said.
Some of the family members are still hopeful that the fishermen will be traced.
Madhava Salian, brother of Mr. Damodar Salian, said he believed that the boat had been hijacked by pirates. If the boat had sunk, debris would have floted on the sea.
“Suvarna Tribhuja is a strong two-year-old boat. It takes about two hours for such a boat to sink. That is enough to send a distress signal. It also had life jackets. All the boats have GPS devices. Hence we want ISRO to track it down,” he said.
“If the boat had sunk, there would have been oil spill as such boats carry about 5,000 litres of diesel with them. Hence we believe it has been hijacked and the fishermen have been kept in captivity,” said Mr. Ganesh Kotian.
Has the boat sunk?
Kumara Chandra, Additional Superintendent of Police, Udupi, said on Monday that the Navy had started searching the area near Sindhudurg in Maharashtra through sonar technology to check if Suvarna Tribhuja had sunk.
He said the Navy had sent an email to this effect to the district police.
Meanwhile, the two teams of district police, along with fishermen from Malpe, which went to Goa and Maharashtra, and Kerala to search for the missing fishermen, a few days back, have drawn a blank.
Satish Kundar, president of Malpe Fishermen’s Association, said that about 350 boats had left from Malpe to search for the missing boat while also doing fishing. “Another 200 boats will leave Malpe for Maharashtra today to search for it. The police and navy are doing their search work, we are searching on our own,” he said.
Meanwhile, M. Manjunath Naik, Principal Secretary, Department of Fisheries and Animal Husbandry, held a meeting with the representatives of the Malpe Fishermen’s Association here on Monday and explained the steps taken by the government to trace the missing boat. “He told us that the government had approached the ISRO and other departments concerned for the search operations,” Mr. Kundar added.
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