The Supreme Court has asked the Union government to investigate the whereabouts of Captain Ashish Kumar, who went missing after his vessel, MT m, was hit by a missile in the Strait of Hormuz on March 1.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant directed Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to look into the matter and submit a status report on the missing captain. The government is expected to respond by Monday.
Captain Kumar was initially presumed dead after bones were recovered from the burnt-out captain’s cabin following the attack. However, a subsequent DNA examination found that the remains did not belong to him, leaving uncertainty over his fate.
The case reached the Supreme Court after Kumar’s wife, Anshu Kumari, approached the court, challenging the presumption that her husband had died in the attack. She has argued that both DNA results and other medical evidence do not support the conclusion that he is dead.
According to the petition, the family also received ransom calls on March 4, three days after the attack. The calls reportedly came from international numbers, including those linked to the UAE and Pakistan, with the callers demanding Rs 20 lakh.
Kumari has further claimed that WhatsApp messages were delivered to Captain Kumar’s phone several hours after MT Skylight was destroyed. She also alleged that his WhatsApp profile was manually deleted on March 31.
The captain’s wife has maintained that these digital traces raise questions about what happened to him after the attack.
She has alleged that, despite these indications, the Centre did not initiate a specialised investigation or diplomatic efforts to trace her husband.
A Palau-flagged oil tanker was under US sanctions, was attacked on March 1 off Oman’s Musandam peninsula, leaving four people injured, according to the country’s maritime security centre.
The 20-member crew of the tanker Skylight was evacuated after the attack, which took place about five nautical miles north of Musandam’s Khasab Port, located on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, the Oman Maritime Security Centre said in a post on X.
