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Informist, Thursday, Apr. 23, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – An Indian sailor on board one of the two ships captured by Iran is safe and the government is in touch with the Iranian authorities regarding his well-being, a senior official said here Thursday.

 

The Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy Wednesday detained two ships, Francesca and Epaminondas, when they were passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians accused the ships of "jeopardising maritime security". Epaminondas was headed to Mundra port in Gujarat and has one Indian among the personnel on board.

 

"There is only one Indian sailor on Epaminondas, and he is safe," Mukesh Mangal, additional secretary in the Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways, said at an inter-ministerial briefing on the West Asia crisis. "We have spoken with the Iranian authorities regarding the safety of the Indian sailor. In fact, all the sailors on these ships are safe. I cannot share more details because these are foreign-flagged and foreign-owned vessels. Both of them are west of the Strait of Hormuz."

 

Iranian news agencies Fars and Tasnim reported that a third vessel, a Greek-owned ship named Euphoria, was also targeted and was now stranded along Iran's shores. "There are 21 Indian sailors on Euphoria. This ship is currently east of the Strait of Hormuz," Mangal said.

 

Iran has forced a soft blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, since the war broke out in West Asia on Feb. 28. Mangal said that since then, 10 vessels flying the Indian flag had crossed the strait while 13 India-flagged and one Indian-owned ship are still stranded in the Persian Gulf. Of the ships that have reached Indian shores, nine were carrying liquefied petroleum gas and one was loaded with crude oil, he said.

 

Responding to a media query on reports of a proposed increase in retail prices of petrol and diesel, Sujata Sharma, joint secretary in the petroleum ministry, said Indian oil marketing companies are suffering an under-recovery of around INR 20 per litre on petrol and around INR 100 on every litre of diesel they are selling.

 

Energy prices have spiked in the wake of the West Asia war with the price of India's crude oil basket touching $107.66 per barrel Wednesday. The price had hit $157.04 per barrel on Mar. 23, up 2.5 times from around $63 a barrel at the end of January.

 

"Despite a sharp increase in crude oil prices, the government has taken measures to keep retail prices under check," Sharma said. "This includes cutting the special excise duty on petrol and diesel by INR 10 per litre and levying special export duty to motivate oil refiners to sell in the domestic market."

 

Earlier in the day, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had dismissed media reports that petrol and diesel prices could be raised by INR 25-INR 28 soon after the current round of assembly elections as "mischievous and misleading". "There is no such proposal under consideration by the government," the ministry posted on the social media platform X.  End

 

US$1 = INR 94.10

 

Reported by Asim Khan

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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