Coastal security agencies caught napping

AHMEDABAD: Fourteen Somalis, now confirmed as pirates, swam from a drifting boat to the Junagadh shore on Sunday and were found out only when villagers spotted them. The incident exposed all claims of the three-tier coastal security of a state that is high on the terror radar.
Gujarat,which has the longest coastline, upped its security after 26/11 when Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists used Gujarati fishermen's boats to reach Mumbai shores and attack the business capital.Since then the coast is guarded by layers of local police, coast guard and Navy. Neither of these agencies knew when 16 nationals of Somalia and Yemen swam to Nandana village on Junagadh shore on Sunday. The coast guard chopper brought one Yemeni from the drifting boat to the shore after villagers alerted them.
Police said it was helpless in the monsoon because their patrol boats were withdrawn when the sea got rough. "Even fishermen who are our informers don't go out to sea in monsoon, only the Navy and coast guard patrol the sea at this time," said an intelligence official. Defence sources say the Airport Authority of India, which controls Porbandar airport, has not yet cleared the launch of night surveillance aircraft of coast guard. The coast guard has three 228 Dorniers and three advanced light helicopters at Porbandar.The Dornier aircraft have hi-tech radars capable of identifying and distinguishing objects even in the dark and could have easily detected the boat carrying Somalis and Yemenis. Besides, the Navy and Air Force's air reconnaissance by unmanned aerial vehicles over Gujarat also failed to report the pirates.