The Filipino captain and three crewmembers of the post-panamax bulker Frontier Triumph appeared in a court in Odisha on Friday, charged with using a Thuraya satellite phone in Indian waters.
The use of Thuraya satellite phones is banned anywhere withing 12 nautical miles of India under section 6 of the Indian Wireless Act and section 20 of the Indian Telegraph Act.
Thuraya phones have been used by terrorists attacking India in the past. They are not licenced to be sold in the country and their logs cannot be readily accessed by security agencies.
“Thuraya phones have frequently been used by anti-India terror groups for their activities in Jammu and Kashmir — even the attackers in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack used the same,” the India Coast Guard (ICG) said.
The ship is owned by Japan’s Kitaura Kaiun Kisen Kaisha.
