Pirates on board INS Tabar on their way to Mumbai. INS Kalpeni intercepted a pirate mother vessel Vega 5 in the Arabian Sea on Saturday. Sixty-one pirates were nabbed. Picture courtesy: Indian Navy

New Delhi, March 16: The 53 Indian sailors in Somali pirates’ captivity could be much closer home than believed.

The pirates are now operating closer to the Indian coastline than ever before, perhaps less than 100km from Lakshadweep, the Centre has indicated.

Security agencies are investigating suspected links between these pirates and Pakistan-based terror groups. They believe that the Somali insurgent group Al Shabaab, which controls large swathes of the east African country and generates funds through piracy, has al Qaida connections.

“A few recent incidents (involving Somali pirates) have taken place about 250 nautical miles from the Indian coast,” foreign minister S.M. Krishna said on March 10 in a written reply to a question from Congress MP Motilal Vora.

This would put the pirates’ area of operation within 50-100km of Lakshadweep, somewhere near the Maldives. Officials said pirate vessels had been sighted around the smaller islands in the Maldives, where the pirates “had developed significant support structures” among the native population.

This, they said, allows the pirates to hold hijacked ships and their crews for months while negotiating for ransom.

Krishna said the pirates were “operating further and further off the Somali coast” and had “extended their reach to 16,000-19,200 km from the Somali coast... to bypass the security corridor established by international naval forces in the Gulf of Aden”.

The government said the navy and coast guard had stepped up vigil and jointly launched the “Ops Island Watch” last December 13, neutralising two pirate “mother ships” and capturing 43 pirates. The operation will be on till the end of this month.

On January 28, the coast guard rescued 20 Thai crew members of a fishing trawler and arrested 15 Somali pirates near Lakshadweep.

The Indian hostages’ plight came up for discussion in the Rajya Sabha on March 10, with Krishna assuring all parties that the Centre would “do everything possible” to get them freed.

“There is no use getting worked up or getting excited or getting emotive,” he said when BJP member S.S. Ahluwalia asked if India would use force against the pirates.

Krishna said any emotional response could put hostages’ lives at risk and cited how a US assault on some pirate-held ships had led to the death of four hostages. India, therefore, would have to depend on back-channel negotiations and on the ship owners.

“That is the only way we can operate,” the minister said, ruling out a deadline for securing the hostages’ release. He hinted that the release of hostages, including 11 Indians, from the MV Rak Africana on March 10 had been secured through the payment of a huge ransom by the ship’s owner.

Some of the 53 Indian hostages have been in captivity for nearly a year. They were captured from the hijacked MV Iceberg, MV Suez, MT Asphalt Venture, MV Sinin (all of which fly the Panamanian flag) and MT Savina Caylyn (which flies the Italian flag).

Many of their family members were in Parliament on March 10 to demand that the Centre ask the shipping companies to speed up negotiations. New Delhi says its missions are in regular touch with the shipping companies. Officials said 124 Indian sailors had been released by pirates since 2008.

The UN Security Council and the International Maritime Organisation are working on preventing piracy. An Indian Navy ship has been deployed in the Gulf of Aden since 2008.