NE NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, MARCH 8
As many as 7 Sri Lankan fibre boats found adrift in Indian waters on Saturday morning by the ICG Ship Rani Abbakka engaged in IMBL operations. The ICG ship was engaged as part of St. Antony’s festival of Kachchativu.
All the seven boats were recovered by ICG Ship C-432. Thorough checking of these boats was carried, nothing suspicious was found.
In the meantime, a request for assistance from Sri Lankan Coast Guard was received to search for few fibre boats belonging to Sri Lankan pilgrims which were secured at Kachchativu and had gone adrift towards Indian waters due to bad weather in the early hours of Saturday. As a goodwill gesture and to improve cooperation between both the Maritime forces, the boats were handed over to Sri Lankan Coast Guard Ship SLCG-409 at IMBL at about 2:30 pm on Saturday by Coast Guard Ship C-432 of Coast Guard Station Mandapam, according to Defence PRO.
