Moradabad, Oct 25 (ANI): Kin of Arif Hasan, a sailor aming 24 Indians on board the ship MV al Khaliq, hijacked by Somali pirates, has urged the Indian Government to take strict action against the kidnappers.

“We want that the government should take a strong action on pirates who are involved in ship hijacking. I want that my son should be released at the earliest,” said Arif Chaudhary, Hasan’s father.

Hasan is a resident of Sirsi in Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad district.

Pirates hijacked MV al Khaliq, a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship, in the early hours of Thursday and took its crew hostage off the coast of Somalia.

The vessel was Indian managed and had 26 crew, most of them Indians.

Somali pirate gangs have caused havoc in the strategic waterways linking Europe with Asia, even though foreign navies patrol the area, and have made millions of dollars in ransom payments.

On October 15, Somali pirates seized a Singapore-owned vessel, MV Kota Wazir, north of Seychelles and abducted 21 crew including four Indians.

On October 19, a Chinese bulk carrier, the De Xin Hai, with 25 Chinese crewmembers, was hijacked about 700 nautical miles off the east coast of Somalia.

The dreaded pirates of the African nation were responsible for over half of the 306 attacks against ships worldwide in the first nine months of this year. (ANI)