Merchant Navy Captain Ashish Kumar’s Wife Moves Supreme Court, Claims He Is Still Alive

The wife of Merchant Navy Captain Ashish Kumar has approached the Supreme Court of India by filing a habeas corpus petition, asserting that her husband is still alive despite reports of his death in a drone attack on an oil tanker off the coast of Oman. She has requested the court to direct the Central Government to trace her husband and produce him before the court, claiming that he is being held captive by unidentified foreign individuals.

Captain Ashish Kumar, a native of Bettiah in Bihar, went missing after a drone attack on the Skylight oil tanker in March, during escalating tensions in West Asia. While eight Indian crew members were rescued, Kumar and another crew member remained unaccounted for. Although burnt human remains were later found in the captain's cabin, Kumar's family has questioned the identification, stating that DNA samples did not match. They also claimed to have received a call from an international number demanding ₹20 lakh for his release. The petition further states that the Indian Embassy in Oman had informed the family that the recovered remains were not conclusively identified as Ashish Kumar's.