On 11 January, the United States Navy Seals intercepted a dhow, a small boat that is used by Asian fisherman and local traders, in the Arabian Sea off the Somali coast. The said boat was found to be carrying Iranian-made advanced conventional weapons, including critical parts for medium-range ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles. The Seals, who lost two of their commandos during the operation, arrested 14 individuals, all of whom were carrying Pakistani identification cards, from the boat.

In their initial interrogation, the arrested accused told the officials that they had sailed from Pakistan. Subsequently, they stated they had sailed from Konarak, Iran. As per their further interrogation they had sailed from Chabahar port, Iran on 5 January. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the said missile components were meant for the Houthi rebels and were being sent by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Less than two months of this incident in a similar development, Indian officials on Tuesday arrested five individuals, the identities of whom are suspected to be of Pakistani origin.

The dhow that was seized off the coast of Gujarat at Arabian Sea and detained by the Indian security agencies, was carrying more than 3,000 kilograms of drugs. According to official sources, the increase in the use of such non-military vessels like dhow for smuggling drugs and weapons is becoming a cause for serious concern for both Indian Navy and Coast-Guard, as well as international law enforcement agencies, as it is impossible to stop and search every such vessel that operates in the Arabian Sea, given the sheer large number of boats that are active in the seas at any given time. India’s western coast extends for roughly 1,500 km from Kanyakumari (Tamil Nadu) in the south to Surat (Gujarat) in the north and is the preferred landing spot for smuggling and illegal boats that sail from the Pakistani and Iranian coasts to deliver consignments in India.

Sources said that once these dhows have reached the pre-decided point, they are joined by another ship or ships during which a ship-to-ship transfer takes place. The second ship, usually smaller than the dhows, then travels to the coasts of India to deliver the consignment. The western coast of India has always been the most preferred point to smuggle men and material into India. As a preparation for the January 1993 Bombay serial blasts, the arms, ammunitions and the 3,000 kg RDX that were used in the blasts were brought into Mumbai from Pakistan during two different landings at Shekhadi and Dighi jetties in Shrivardhan tehsil of Raigad district, Maharashtra on the western coast of India on 3 and 7 February, roughly one month before the actual serial blasts were carried out in the city on 12 March.

Five Customs officials and five policemen were found guilty of allowing the consignment to enter Mumbai in lieu of bribes. Similarly, the perpetrators of the 26 November 2008 Mumbai attack too had sailed from Pakistan and landed in Mumbai. They left the Karachi coast on a small boat at 7 a.m. on 22 November, boarded a bigger boat in between, before being transferred to a much larger boat, Al-Hussaini at 9 p.m. in the night, which they travelled on till 12 p.m. on 23 November.

After that they hijacked an Indian shipping boat, Kuber and used it to enter Mumbai at around 6 p.m. on 26 November, while using a speed boat that they had brought with themselves from Pakistan. The Chabahar port region in Iran has multiple areas where the presence of Iranian security forces is low, as a result of which it becomes an ideal point to launch dhows that do not need deep waters to travel to the coasts. These areas have presence of multiple armed groups, who move around the porous Iran-Pakistan border, and regularly carry out illegal work in lieu of money or to gain patronage from Pakistan’s deep state.

One such group, Jaishul- Adl is suspected to have kidnapped Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav from Chabahar in March 2016 before handing him to Pakistan’s intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). This was also confirmed to The Sunday Guardian by the head of the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) Dr Allah Nizar Baloch in January 2018. These dhows, that are generally 50-70 feet long, 15-20 feet broad and 10-12 feet in height can carry a maximum weight up to 1,500 tonnes and 15-20 men. Given the lack of employment opportunities, extreme poverty and inhospitable conditions, the terror groups that procure arms and drugs from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan and then supply them to countries along the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, are easily able to list in men who can carry out this risky but rewarding job of transporting drugs and arms.

This “job”, which usually takes ten days, can fetch Rs 2 lakh to Rs 4 lakh for every man who takes part in it. However, as it is likely to emerge in the case of the recently arrested five individuals who are being held in Gujarat, it is an extremely challenging task to identify the kingpin behind these shipments. The people who are arrested from these dhows are extremely low level operators who have no knowledge of who the people whom the consignment belongs to or who the people who are paying them are.

And hence their arrest and interrogation rarely generate leads that can identify the group or the individuals, sitting thousands of miles away and who prefer to function under fictional identities. The only way to make the west coast of India non-terrorist and non-drug friendly, officials say, is to hurt them financially by seizing their consignment and arresting their couriers to the point that these arms and drug cartels are dissuaded from coming towards India.

It is learnt that the matter is being urgent attention by the PMO, and that measures are on the way to ensure that such smuggling is snuffed out by use of multiple methods and agencies.