DJ Venkatesh & Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, May 25: An abandoned Pontoon has been found near Goal Tikry area of Diglipur, North Andaman on Wednesday, raising security concerns.
The massive Pontoon is reportedly 23 meters in length, 7 meters in width and 5 meters in height. As per reports Kolkata Port trust is written on that Pontoon.
The abandoned Pontoon has now left many questions unanswered like how did such a heavy Pontoon reached near Diglipur? Why it was not detected by Coast Guard or navy before it reached near shore? As Pontoon are usually without engine, it must have taken months to reach Andaman Sea, then why it was not detected? The biggest question is however whether the said Pontoon was used to carry something very crucial to these Islands, illegally?
The Pontoon is so heavy that yesterday Coast Guard could not bring it to the Diglipur Port and even today with a bigger vessel the Pontoon could not be brought to Diglipur.
It has been learnt that now during high tide some bigger vessel will be brought to tow the Pontoon to Diglipur Jetty.
Meanwhile, expert sources said that there is nothing alarming in this as due to monsoon’s cyclic current heavy objects might drift towards Andamans from Kolkata region.
Moreover Pontoons are too small objects to be detected during Monsoon season, when there are 3-4 meters wave. Moreover most of the parts of the Pontoon remain under water so detection is very difficult. Not only this, the Pontoon might have reached Andaman from IBM border, which is Indian, Bangladesh and Myanmar Border, which makes detection of such object difficult.
