New Delhi: Within an hour of sending home to Delhi images of a senior officer sleeping on his ship while on duty, and claiming that he was being harassed, a young deck cadet working on merchant navy oil tanker New Horizon went missing on the high seas around 500 miles from the coast of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean on September 13. As the ship, bearing a Hong Kong flag, continued its onward journey to Ningbo in China, Dhananjay Arora’s family was informed about the mysterious disappearance.
Dhananjay’s family and friends have since been making attempts through social media posts and by approaching authorities in the Indian government as well as senior politicians to know about his whereabouts. However, as his friend Aman Pathan told The Wire, “Nothing is still known about him.”
Captain briefed cadet’s father on search efforts
Dhananjay’s father, Virender Kumar Arora, received a call from the captain of the ship in which he said the Mauritius authorities had been approached to send boats to look for Dhananjay. He also said that the ship was searched several times over by a team of four personnel and him, but the cadet could not be found.
The captain also told Arora that the photograph Dhananjay sent his family was being investigated. Sounding distressed and with his voice cracking up, the captain, who is from Tamil Nadu, said, “Dhananjay was a very sweet child.”
Photo of a sleeping officer that Dhananjay sent his family. Photo: Special arrangement
He said he has been in service for so long but never encountered such a scenario. “We are doing everything, but we are unable to find out what happened. I am still working on it, we are trying hard to bring Dhananjay back. We even asked for a helicopter and plane from Mauritius but they said they are very far from the spot.”
He added that for two days, they searched the entire area but were heartbroken as they could not find him. “We are trying our level best,” he said.
Virender said his son had problems with the chief officer and since the incident happened soon after the message, the matter needs to be investigated.
Four boats joined search from Mauritius
Meanwhile, Pathan said, little is known about any search being carried out for Dhananjay on the seas. “We were initially told that four boats had left Mauritius to look for him but there has been no official confirmation about it. Also, no formal complaint has been lodged with the police of any country on the disappearance.”
Virender, a resident of Jhilmil Colony in Delhi, earlier stated that his son went missing around 500 miles from the coast of Mauritius around 5 pm on September 13.
He said, “There has been no assuring response from the shipping company till now. With every passing minute the risk to my son’s life is increasing.”
Talking to the captain, Dhananjay’s mother charged that an officer who had joined the ship in July was the one he complained about. She said Dhananjay used to charge that this officer misbehaved with him.
At this, the captain acknowledged that Dhananjay had also complained to him a couple of times about this officer.
Virender said it was around midnight of September 13 that the family received information about Dhananjay being “missing at sea”.
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He said the ship crew “started the search for him after 9:00 pm IST when he did not turn up for dinner. After an on-board search for three hours we were informed of him being missing from the vessel around 12:00 am midnight. The vessel turned around and started a search and rescue operation. Since then no information has been shared about the progress of the operation by the shipping company.”
Family received details in writing from placement agency on September 14
On September 14, Mumbai-based Elegant Marine Services, which is the recruitment and placement services license agency for Dhananjay, sent an email message to Virender stating that the young cadet marine went missing when his vessel was en route from N’Goma in Angola to Ningbo, China. It wrote that the vessel had left Angola on August 27 and was scheduled to reach Ningbo on September 30.
“All the concerned parties and MRCC (Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre), Mauritius were informed and at the time of writing this letter, vessel is carrying out search operation to locate the missing cadet,” the letter read.
Pathan said there has been little information from the companies since. He added that Dhananjay had sent information about the harassment to his sister Riya.
Dhananjay also sent a voice message to his mother, said he was “tired”
In the last voice message he sent to his mother via a friend, Dhananjay asked her about her health and said he missed her, his father and sister a great deal. He also said that he was feeling tired now and urged his mother to get Riya whatever she wanted. He also said he would meet them soon and asked the family members to take care.
Pathan said Dhananjay had been working for nearly 10 months now. Due to COVID-19, he could not return to India as planned and after finishing one trip went on another one. “On the first trip he had a lot of friends with him but on this one he was the only cadet while all others were senior to him.”
Pathan said around 40,000 tweets have been shared to drum up support for finding Dhananjay. “In all of them we have tagged the Ministry of External Affairs and Union minister S. Jaishankar. We have also approached Congress leader Shashi Tharoor through his staff to seek his help in the matter.” However, he said, there was still no definitive information on Dhananjay.