Three bags with papers of ‘P305 barge crew’ recovered from coastal Valsad

The documents, police said, might belong to at least 15 persons who were on board the barge P 305 and the tugboat that sank off the Mumbai coast in cyclone Tauktae.

Valsad Police has recovered three bags containing important documents, like Aadhaar cards and passports, from coastal areas in Umargam taluka of the district. The documents, police said, might belong to at least 15 persons who were on board the barge P 305 and the tugboat that sank off the Mumbai coast in cyclone Tauktae.

Umargam Police Inspector (Marine) V J Jadeja said, “We have recovered several important documents from three different bags recovered from the coastal areas at Nargol village in Umargam taluka today. We have also recovered a fender from and an iron cabin of a rubber boat. We suspect that the recovered documents might belong to the crew members onboard the ONGC barge which sank in the sea. We have intimated the Yellow Gate police station in Mumbai about the recovery of such important documents.”

According to the police, a team had reached Kalai Machhiward area of Nargol village, after sarpanch Narendra Tandel had alerted them about the bags containing important documents. The documents include Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, driving license, voter’s ID card, marine course certificates, school and birth certificates, police said. Mobile phones, wristwatches, ATM cards and bank passbooks have also been found from the bags, they said. Police have also identified some of the names from the documents.

The Barge P 305, which housed personnel engaged in maintenance work of an offshore oil drilling platform of state-run oil and gas major ONGC, sank on Monday evening off the Mumbai coast after it went adrift due to the high-speed winds and huge tidal waves caused by the extremely severe cyclone which brushed the Mumbai coast on its way to Gujarat. Earlier, a few bodies, suspected to be missing crew members of the barge, were recovered from coastal areas of Gujarat.

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