It had iron ores in its hold and was bound for China. All the 27 crew members on board were saved except the engineer.
Sabir Bux, the scuba-diver who shot to fame for taking photographs of the 133-year-old French sunken ship Velleda in the Bay of Bengal in January, is in the news again but this time for the wrong reasons. The Paradip Port Trust has lodged an FIR against him for diving into the sea near Paradip, under their jurisdiction, without valid permission.
Bux and his four students had dived into the Bay of Bengal near Paradip, about 100km from here, last Saturday to trace the body of a Russian engineer believed to be on board a Mongolian ship, Black Rose, that sank following a technical snag, while still anchored off the port on September 9.
It had iron ores in its hold and was bound for China. All the 27 crew members on board were saved except the engineer. For Bux, saving a human life was more important than getting cases registered against him. “A day after the ship sank, I approached the Port Authority, Cost Guard and the local ship agent to obtain necessary permission,” he said.
“The engineer’s sister and the Ukraine consulate general’s office in India requested me to dive immediately to save the engineer. But permission from the port officials was not forthcoming,” Bux said. Two days later, port officials, in consultation with authorities, gave him a verbal go-ahead for the rescue operation.
Without any technical support from the port authorities, Bux hired a boat on Saturday and went with his students to dive and trace body. But he was not successful. “The delay in giving me the ‘verbal’ go-ahead proved costly,” Bux said.
But port officials lodged a case against Bux on Sunday saying he had malicious intent. “He entered our area from the wrong side, without valid permission. One needs to take a written permission. Nobody should venture near the deck of a sunken ship only on the basis of a verbal permission,” deputy conservator of Paradip Port GK Biswal said.
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