SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD Usman Khan, called Ameer, begged pirates to spare his life on a fishing boat early Saturday morning when two men, armed with a gun and a cutlass, awakened him and others from sleep demanding their valuables.
The boat was anchored off La Bonne Intention, East Coast Demerara, and Khan, along with three other men, was sleeping on the craft to ensure that no one tampered with it.
Khan, of 127 Mon Repos North, ECD, told this newspaper at his house yesterday that two young bandits approached the crew in a stolen blue and black boat.
He said the men ordered them to remove the two engines from his boat and place them in the one they were in.
After he had done this, Khan said one of the bandits threatened to take his life. It was at this point that he begged, “Uncle, take the whole boat and put we in y’all small boat. Don’t kill we.”
After the men left, Khan said he used his cell phone that he had hidden to call the owner of the boat, Chatterpaul Balkissoon, urging him to summon the police immediately.
According to him, police officers responded immediately and fired shots upon reaching the scene. This alerted the pirates,
They dumped one of the engines and the gun overboard.
But before they could get away the police arrested them and they were taken to the Sparendaam Police Station on the East Coast of Demerara.
Mr. Chatterpaul, also known as ‘Hanso’, told the Chronicle yesterday that the bandits were apprehended approximately 600 yards from the seashore.
Though he lost one of his engines, valued at $700,000, Chatterpaul said his main concern now is that the other engine cannot be returned to him as it has to be taken to court to be used as an exhibit. And so his work is stalled, he said.
Chatterpaul trades dry cargo with Venezuela and he started the fishing business last January. He had purchased his boat just two weeks ago.

The fishing industry has been significantly affected by piracy in recent years, resulting in losses to fishermen and their families.
And so the Ministry of Agriculture is looking to implement the Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS).
VMS are used in commercial fishing to allow environmental and fisheries regulatory organizations to monitor, minimally, the position, time at a position, course and speed of fishing vessels.
They are an essential part of monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) programmes at national and international levels and may be used to monitor vessels in the territorial waters of a country or a subdivision of a country, or in the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) that extend 200 nautical miles from the coasts of many countries.
The VMS is also used to determine a vessel’s location at a given time, and periodically send this information, usually by satellite, to a monitoring station ashore.
Many of the VMS components also have applicability, along with non-VMS marine electronics, to a wide range of functions aboard a fishing vessel. These include navigation, finding fish, collision avoidance, routine voice and e-mail communications.