A city police team arrested two directors of Mumbai-based Pratibha Shipping Company Limited, which owns the ill-fated >MT Pratibha Cauvery vessel.
The ship was grounded off Elliots Beach here last October after it was caught in cyclone Nilam.
Six crew members who attempted to escape from the ship drowned.
Police sources said Madan Anand Rao Pawar (55) and Suresh Anand Rao Pawar (53), both residents of Shivaji Nagar in Pune, were arrested in Pune on Tuesday on charges of negligence, causing the death of the sailors.
Shastri Nagar police registered case under Section 174 (Police to inquire and report on suicide, etc) of CrPC, which was altered to Section 304 (ii) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of IPC and started a probe.
Rough sea
The incident took place on October 31, 2012 when the rough sea and gusty winds due to the cyclone, made the ship run adrift even though its captain tried to take the vessel out to the deep sea.
Out of the 37 crew on board, 25 members tried to escape the rough seas on rescue boats.
While three abandoned the efforts and went back to the ship, 17 were rescued by fishermen, but one succumbed on the way to a city hospital. Five others who went missing in the sea drowned and their bodies were washed ashore.
On November 26, 2012, two employees of Sea World Shipping and Logistics Private Limited, the agency who dealt with the vessel, were arrested for failing to provide necessary assistance to the sailors who were stranded in the ship without supplies for over two weeks before the cyclone.
They were released on bail.
On February 22, parents of drowned sailor Niranjan, committed suicide.
They cited, in their suicide note, the delay in ensuring justice for them and the lack of any police action as the reason for taking the extreme step in their suicide notes.
Lodged in Puzhal prison
The two directors were brought to Chennai on transit warrants and remanded in judicial custody and sent to Puzhal prison after being produced before a magistrate at the Saidapet court complex on Wednesday afternoon.
