The Yellow Gate police said the 15 pirates, lodged at Arthur Road Jail, were made to stand in front of the 20 rescued fishermen of Thai and Myanmarese nationalities. "The rescued fishermen of Prantalay-14 are made witnesses in the first case," said DCP (ports) Quaiser Khalid. "Investigators are kept away from the IP. The magistrate prepares the report based on the witness statement and the people they had identified during the parade on a random basis," said Khalid.
Khalid said the report prepared by the magistrate is despatched in a sealed cover to the court. "The report is opened only when the trial begins," he said.
Investigators said they have informed the government of India to ask the Somali embassy for an official translator after they were unable to find anyone from Mumbai University. "We had approached the government to draft letter to the Somali embassy after they had said in the letter they did not have sufficient funds to send a translator.
--->The embassy officials said that they were speaking to some students to be translators for us. However, it would be more convenient to hand over the pirates instead," said Khalid.
Also the investigators said they are waiting for the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard's approval to take the investigating officers from the Yellow Gate police along with two panochas to carry out the panchnama of the spot where the piracy happened.
He said they are taking the help of the two NRIs residing at Bandra and Nagpada to interrogate the pirates. "The two run garment businesses in South Africa and regularly go on business trips to Somalia. They know the language and approached us two weeks ago after reading the news about the city police searching for Somali translators," he said.
A Yellow Gate police officer said the two NRIs had helped them to question the pirates. "They
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