Ghaziabad/Meerut, April 1 "We knew there could be an attack on the way, but we had to take that chance," said 27-year-old Ketan Mehta, recalling the moment he and fellow Indian sailors decided to flee a war zone in Iran after weeks of detention and uncertainty.
What began as a routine voyage turned into a months-long ordeal that saw them first held on suspicion of smuggling and later caught in the middle of the West Asia conflict, before they finally made their way back home.
On December 8, when oil tanker MT Valiant Roar, carrying 18 crew members – including 16 Indians – was intercepted in international waters en route to Khor Fakkan in the UAE, among those on board were Captain Vijay Kumar (45) from Meerut and third engineer Ketan Mehta from Ghaziabad.
According to Mehta, Iranian authorities initially accused the crew of diesel smuggling, and later of transporting black oil, but neither allegation held up in court.
"During this period, we were kept in jail for around 50 days. The main difficulty was that we could not understand their language, and they could not understand ours," he told