{"id":3125,"date":"2026-02-20T23:58:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T23:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/?p=3125"},"modified":"2026-02-20T23:58:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T23:58:56","slug":"128621215-cms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/?p=3125","title":{"rendered":"US-sanctioned Iran-linked oil tanker spent 8 days in Pak maritime boundary: FIR | India News &#8211; The Times of India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"MwN2O\">\n<div class=\"vdo_embedd\">\n<div class=\"T22zO\">\n<section class=\"D3Wk1  clearfix id-r-component leadmedia undefined undefined  VtlfQ\" style=\"top:0px\">\n<div class=\"D3Wk1\" data-ua-type=\"1\" onclick=\"stpPgtnAndPrvntDefault(event)\">\n<div class=\"zPaFh\">\n<div class=\"wJnIp\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-128621194,imgsize-30552,width-400,resizemode-4\/asphalt-star.jpg\" alt=\"US-sanctioned Iran-linked oil tanker spent 8 days in Pak maritime boundary: FIR\" title=\"Asphalt Star tanker\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>NEW DELHI\/MUMBAI: One of the three US-sanctioned Iran-linked oil tankers seized by the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/indian-coast-guard\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\">Indian Coast Guard<\/a> (ICG) on Feb 6 off the country\u2019s coast had spent days inside Pakistan&#8217;s maritime boundary with its tracking systems switched off, according to an FIR registered in Mumbai.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"4\"\/>The ICG had seized three ships \u2014 Asphalt Star, Stellar Ruby and Al Jafzia \u2014 around 100 nautical miles west of Mumbai for investigation and lodged a police complaint on Feb 15 at the Yellow Gate police station against nine persons, including the owner of the three ships for alleged illegal activities and smuggling oil linked to Iran. There were 55 crew members on board all three seized vessels.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"6\"\/>Based on the complaint of Aniruddha Dharampal Dabash (40), an ICG commandant, Mumbai police filed an FIR and arrested the captain of MT Asphalt Star and a crew member for their alleged role in oil smuggling and forgery. <!-- -->TOI has the copy of the FIR.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"11\"\/>On the ship\u2019s presence in the Pakistan maritime zone, the FIR said, \u201cElectronic chart display &amp; information system data of MT Asphalt Star was examined by Coast Guard Officer assistant commandant P Siddharth Ratnam. It was observed that between Jan 20 and Jan 28, the vessel had entered Pakistan\u2019s maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ).\u201d<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"13\"\/>\u201cOn Jan 28, at approximately 11 hours, the vessel had switched off its automatic identification system (AIS), very high frequency (VHF) and all sensors, thereby concealing its identity and carrying out suspicious movements. Upon further questioning, the master stated that the ship\u2019s voyage data recorder (VDR) system had stopped functioning,\u201d it said. All three ships used AIS spoofing and false identity data to evade detection.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"17\"\/>Jogendar Singh Brar, an Indian national who is currently based in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and is said to be the owner of the ships, is named as one of the accused in the FIR.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"19\"\/>Through sustained rummaging, corroboration of electronic data on board suspect vessels and verification documents and interrogation of crew, the ICG specialist boarding team established the modus operandi of criminals.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"22\"\/>\u201cWe have arrested Shyam Bahadur Chauhan and one more person in this case. They were produced before a court and sent in police custody till Feb 23,\u201d said a police officer. Chauhan is the master of MT Asphalt Star. In the UAE, Brar claimed that his ships were providing essential supplies to other ships in distress far from the Indian coast and that the ships were not engaged in any illegal activity, say local media reports.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"25\"\/>The FIR stated that MT Asphalt Star was found to have illegally transferred 30 metric tonnes of heavy fuel oil to MT AL Jafiza in the EEZ of the Indian Ocean by conducting ship to ship operation without informing any Indian govt authorities. It was also found to have illegally transferred 5473 metric tonnes of Bitumen used for road construction to MT stellar Ruby.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"27\"\/><\/div>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/us-sanctioned-iran-linked-oil-tanker-spent-8-days-in-pak-maritime-boundary-fir\/articleshow\/128621215.cms\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW DELHI\/MUMBAI: One of the three US-sanctioned Iran-linked oil tankers seized by the Indian Coast&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8832,724,723,719,720,721,7767,8833,8834,722,8831],"class_list":["post-3125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-asphalt-star","tag-breaking-news","tag-google-news","tag-india","tag-india-news","tag-india-news-today","tag-indian-coast-guard","tag-oil-smuggling","tag-pakistan-maritime-boundary","tag-today-news","tag-us-sanctioned-iran-linked-oil-tanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/d.sheep-mine.ts.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}