Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: Indian merchant ship captain Sunil James, who was freed from Togo jail after being arrested for allegedly aiding pirates re-united with his family in Mumbai on Friday.
After landing at the Mumbai airport James thanked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam and Indian authorities in Togo for his release.
James said that whatever has happened in the last 5 months is past and gone and justice has prevailed.
James had stopped at Togo to report an attack on his ship MT Ocean Centurion by pirates when he was arrested July 31, along with two other crew members, for allegedly aiding the pirates.
India was in touch with Togo authorities to secure on compassionate ground the release of the sailor whose family wanted him to conduct the last rites of his 11-month-old son.
James`s family had been seeking his release so that he could return home for the last rites of his 11-month-old son Vivaan who died Dec 2 of septicaemia in a Mumbai hospital.
The sailor`s 31-year-old wife Aditi and others in the family wanted James to conduct the last rites of his son whose body is lying in a hospital morgue since the toddler`s death.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin yesterday said James and another Indian sailor, Vijayan, have begun their journey back to India.
