Karachi police briefly detain protesting family members of Pakistani sailors held hostage by Somali pirates

KARACHI: Some of the family members of Pakistani sailors held hostage by Somali pirates aboard the MT Honour 25 for more than four months were briefly detained in the early hours of Monday while they were staging a sit-in near Karachi's Sharea Faisal. The MT Honour 25, a Palau-flagged oil tanker, was hijacked by armed pirates off the coast of Puntland, Somalia, on April 21. Besides 10 crew members from Pakistan, the hostages include seamen from Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka. During more than four months of their captivity, no significant progress has been reported either in negotiations or in the payment of the ransom, said to be around $3 million, for their recovery. Their families have staged protests for their recovery multiple times. On Sunday, they began an overnight sit-in outside the Foreign Office near Sharea Faisal and planned to march to the Supreme Court registry on Monday morning. But police reached the protest site before that and detained some of them. They were later released, the wife of one of the hostages confirmed to Dawn in the afternoon. 'They were taken to the police station and kept there for a long time, and the police were not allowing us to see them. The police misbehaved with us and told us to go away,' said Ayesha Ameen, whose husband, Ameen Bin Shams, was a fitter on the hijacked ship. 'They were arrested around 7:45am,' added Ayesha, who was not detained by police. A police official, who requested anonymity, also confirmed that the detained individuals had been released. Dawn also contacted East senior superintendent of police and deputy inspector general, but they did not respond. Earlier, Ayesha recorded a video message at the protest site and said the families had been demanding the recovery of the hostages for four and a half months; however, 'no one is listening to us'. She added that the protesters were not blocking any roads or engaged in illegal activity but were merely protesting peacefully. 'We came here for the hostages' release, not to become prisoners ourselves,' she added. Another protester recorded a video inside a vehicle that appeared to be a police van. Police personnel could be seen standing outside the van in the video, in which the maternal uncle of a second engineer on the ship decried the detention of the protesters. 'We have been arrested — our women, elders and kids. It is shameful. 'Bilawal Bhutto sahib, we did not expect this from you,' Talib Raza said, expressing disappointment. In another video, a woman was also seen inside a vehicle that appeared to be a police van. Meanwhile, another woman could be heard saying, 'Look, we are being arrested. This is our government, and this is our police. We are being taken away only because we spoke up for ourselves.' Distress messages Since the sailors' hijacking, the crew has also made several emotional videos and audio appeals , while reporting that they have run out of clean water, food and medicine. The last message from them came on August 7, more than 100 days after being taken hostage by Somali pirates. In that video, they appealed directly to the Pakistani government for their release. They appeared to be in a state of extreme distress, with most looking sick and weak. The hostages requested that the Pakistani government talk to the Somali pirates and take steps to release them. The hostages are victims of an ' ownership crisis ' because it is not clear who owns the ship, and the man previously thought to be the owner was later revealed to be more likely a middleman who hired them. Last month, in a meeting with the International Maritime Organisation's head, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar pressed for 'urgent and effective institutional intervention' for the return of the Pakistani sailors. Earlier that month, he had also directed 'stakeholders' to intensify diplomatic engagement with national and international partners to facilitate the release. The Foreign Office has also maintained that it remains 'actively engaged' to secure the release of the seamen. Additional input from Imtiaz