Stranded Indians back home

Paris, New Delhi: It was a happy homecoming for 276 passengers, mostly Indians, on Monday after being stranded for days by French authorities at the Vatry airport, 150 km from Paris, over suspected “human trafficking.”

Twentyfive passengers, including two minors, are reported to have stayed back and sought asylum. The asylum application will be analyzed at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport.

They were among the 303 passengers travelling in a chartered aircraft to Nicaragua from Dubai, when the plane, belonging to Legend Airlines of Romania, was detained in France.

Elsewhere, 21 Indians aboard the 21,000-tonne merchant vessel MV Chem Pluto, which was attacked by drone in the Arabian Sea off India's west coast, on Monday, reached Mumbai and anchored at outer anchorage.

In view of the drone attacks in the Arabian Sea, Indian Navy said on Monday that it had deployed the guided missile destroyers, INS Mormugao, INS Kochi and INS Kolkata in various areas to maintain a deterrent presence. P8I long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft are being regularly tasked to maintain domain awareness.

"On her arrival, the Indian Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal team inspected the vessel to make a preliminary assessment of the type and nature of attack," the Indian Navy said. A joint Investigation by various agencies has commenced on completion of the inspection.

MV Chem Pluto has been cleared for further operation by her company-in-charge at Mumbai. The ship is scheduled to undergo mandatory checks by the various inspecting authorities before undertaking ship to ship (STS) transfer of cargo.

This is likely to be followed by docking and repairs of the damaged portion of MV Chem Pluto, which wsa attacked 200 nautical miles or about 375 km southwest of Veraval, Gujarat.

In France, the chartered plane was expected to take off around 10 am local time but was delayed as some passengers did not want to return to their country of origin. The Indian Embassy thanked the French government for quick resolution of the issue.

“The situation was for a while confusing,” according to the airline's lawyer, Liliana Bakayoko. Speaking to BFMTV, she said that some passengers did not want to return.

“Some of the passengers would be unhappy with this return because they wanted to continue their journey to Nicaragua as planned,” she said “We are very relieved. We were impatiently waiting for this.”

On Sunday, the airport was turned into a makeshift courtroom and four French judges questioned the detained passengers. The hearings were conducted as part of the investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor's office on suspicion of human trafficking. According to the French media, some of the passengers spoke Hindi and others Tamil.