Sri Vijaya Puram, August 12: The apprehension of nine Myanmar nationals and seizure of around 300 kg of sea cucumber in North and Middle Andaman has brought renewed attention to the challenge of detecting small foreign vessels across the vast and remote waters surrounding the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The apprehensions followed a coordinated operation by the North and Middle Andaman District Police and the Indian Coast Guard after information from a local fisherman led authorities to a suspected foreign poacher’s dinghy near Hiran Tikrey, behind Smith Island.
By the time security personnel reached the area, however, the dinghy had been abandoned. Around 300 kg of sea cucumber and lifesaving equipment were recovered from the vessel, while its suspected occupants had allegedly made their way ashore and dispersed into the adjoining forest.
What followed was an extensive search operation involving personnel from police stations at Diglipur, Kalighat and Mayabunder, in coordination with the Indian Coast Guard.
Five Myanmar nationals were apprehended between July 29 and August 4. Four more were subsequently apprehended from Ganesh Nagar, Ward No. 1, on August 8, taking the total to nine.
The operation, code-named “Operation Blue Shield”, demonstrated the ability of enforcement agencies to track and apprehend suspected foreign poachers even after they had allegedly abandoned their vessel and moved inland.
But security experts say the sequence of events also raises a larger question for the strategically important Islands: how early can small foreign vessels entering these waters be detected and intercepted?
In this case, the operation was triggered by information from a local fisherman. By the time the suspected foreign dinghy was located, around 300 kg of sea cucumber had allegedly already been collected and the occupants were no longer on the vessel.
Security experts said small boats and dinghies can be particularly difficult to detect across a maritime area as large and geographically dispersed as that surrounding the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Their size and construction, weather and sea conditions, and the sheer expanse that has to be monitored can all make continuous surveillance difficult.
There is nothing in the information released about Operation Blue Shield to establish that this particular vessel could necessarily have been detected or intercepted earlier. Its precise route, the point at which it allegedly entered Indian waters and how long it remained in the area have also not been publicly detailed.
The incident nevertheless puts the spotlight on the wider surveillance challenge in a territory whose strategic significance extends far beyond illegal fishing and poaching.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are spread across hundreds of kilometres and lie close to some of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Security experts have long pointed to the archipelago’s location near Southeast Asia and the approaches to the Malacca Strait as a key reason for its importance in India’s maritime security architecture.
The same geography that gives the Islands their strategic importance also makes them difficult to police, with remote and uninhabited islands surrounded by a vast maritime expanse.
Security experts say an unauthorised foreign vessel entering these waters cannot therefore be viewed solely through the prism of fisheries or wildlife enforcement. The ability to detect, identify and track unidentified vessels is also an important part of maintaining maritime domain awareness around a strategically sensitive island chain.
Coordination Remains Critical
The latest incident has also drawn attention to coordination between intelligence agencies and forces operating on the ground and at sea.
Security experts told The Wave Andaman that there is scope for better coordination between intelligence agencies and operational forces in the Islands. Given the geography of the archipelago and the difficulty of detecting small vessels, they said intelligence gathered by different agencies needs to reach the forces capable of acting on it quickly enough for suspicious movements to be verified and, where warranted, intercepted.
Security experts said closer real-time coordination between intelligence agencies and forces operating at sea and on the ground could shorten the gap between receiving intelligence and mounting an operational response.
The issue, according to them, is not simply about deploying more patrol boats or surveillance equipment. It is also about ensuring that information gathered by different parts of the security architecture is rapidly collated, assessed and converted into action.
There is, however, no information currently available to suggest that a specific intelligence-sharing or coordination failure allowed the dinghy involved in Operation Blue Shield to reach the Islands. Whether the vessel had previously been detected or whether any intelligence about its movement existed before the fisherman alerted authorities has not been disclosed.
The operation has also highlighted the potentially important role of local fishermen in this security network.
In Operation Blue Shield, the initial information came from a fisherman. Security experts said fishing communities can provide an additional layer of maritime awareness because they routinely operate in areas where conventional surveillance can be difficult.
Fishermen are also well placed to notice unfamiliar boats, unusual movements or activity around remote coastal areas. Information from these communities, experts said, could be more systematically integrated with inputs from surveillance systems, patrol vessels and intelligence agencies.
That does not diminish the significance of the latest operation. Once information about the suspected dinghy became available, security personnel mounted a search across difficult terrain that continued for several days and eventually resulted in nine apprehensions.
But security experts said preventing unauthorised activity at sea remains preferable to having to pursue suspected offenders after they have reached land. Detecting a suspected poaching vessel before it reaches a vulnerable island could potentially prevent protected marine resources from being harvested and reduce the possibility of its occupants disappearing into remote forests, triggering a prolonged land-based search.
Operation Blue Shield therefore illustrates both the strength and the challenge of Andaman’s maritime security architecture. Security agencies were able to track down nine suspected foreign poachers after they had allegedly reached land and dispersed into difficult terrain. But the recovery of an abandoned foreign dinghy carrying around 300 kg of sea cucumber also highlights the more difficult task — detecting and intercepting small suspicious vessels before they reach the Islands.
For a strategically important archipelago, security experts said, better integration of intelligence, maritime surveillance, community inputs and forces on the ground will be critical to shifting the emphasis from post-incident enforcement to earlier interception.
The police have meanwhile appealed to residents to provide credible information regarding crime and illegal activities to the nearest police station. Authorities have said the identity of informers will be kept confidential and suitable rewards provided for credible information.
