5 sailors return from Iran 2 years after getting clean chit in drugs case
Five Indian merchant navy sailors, including two from Mumbai, returned home on Friday after spending four years in Iran, where they were held in connection with a drugs case. They spent 400 days in prison and despite a local court giving them an all-clear in March 2021, it took them two years to return home.
Cousins Aniket Yenpure (31) and Mandar Worlikar (28), both residents of Worli Koliwada in Mumbai, were the first to emerge from the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport around 2.38pm, and anxious relatives and friends welcomed them with hugs and fragrant garlands. Yenpure’s aunt Shashikala held on to him from across the barricade in the arrivals section for 10 minutes, unable to contain her tears of joy.
The other sailors – Pranav Tiwari (23) from Patna, Naveen Singh (24) from Bageshwar, Uttarakhand, and Thamizh Selvan (25) from Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu, emerged soon after. They were all welcomed by the Yenpures and Worlikars.
Milind Worlikar, Mandar’s father, said members of all five families had survived emotional, physical and financial strain in this period. “I hope that there is some way to ensure other children with dreams of travelling the world do not go through what our children had to endure,” he said.
Yenpure’s uncle Datta Yenpure threw light on how the cousins took up jobs that led them to an unknown terrain. Both had steady jobs in a reputed IT firm when they came across an advertisement for openings in the merchant navy. They decided to apply and eventually joined in July 2019.
Their first sail itself became a challenge – the cargo ship carried an illegal load of narcotics, which only the other senior crew members and the captain were aware of. Yenpure, however, thought something was wrong when he learnt that cargo was being off-loaded in the middle of the sea. All five then decided to record what was happening onboard on their mobile phones – this later helped in proving their innocence.
Their ship was intercepted in 2020 by Iranian naval officers and the entire crew was arrested. After spending 403 days in prison, the five men were proven innocent in 2021. However, there were diplomatic hurdles to overcome before they could return home.