India has made a formal consular request to Pakistan and is engaging with shipping operators to resolve the case of six Indian seafarers who have been stranded aboard a vessel at Karachi Port for more than six months, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at the weekly media briefing in New Delhi on Friday.

Source: ANI

Jaiswal said the long delay stems from an employment and crewing dispute between the sailors and the ship's owner, because maritime regulations do not allow crew members to disembark until a replacement team arrives. The Karachi case has been running for months — the sailors' families had earlier sought government help in Delhi — and Friday's briefing was the government's clearest public statement yet on the steps being taken.

Source: The Daily Jagran

In a second case raised at the same briefing, the MEA confirmed that an emergency travel certificate has been issued to Akshay Harish, an Indian seafarer from Prakkulam in Kollam, Kerala, who was stranded at Chabahar Port in Iran after he was told that his passport and his Continuous Discharge Certificate (CDC) had been lost.

Source: IANS

Harish had joined a shipping company on December 5, 2025 through a recruiting agency based in Palakkad and boarded a merchant vessel in Japan. When the vessel reached Chabahar, the captain informed him that his passport and CDC were lost, and he was disembarked from the ship, Jaiswal said.

Harish contacted the Indian Consulate on November 9, after which the Indian Embassy in Tehran and the Consulate in Bandar Abbas reached out to him and coordinated with the ship's owner and agent on documentation. 'Accordingly, he applied for an emergency certificate, and that emergency certificate has now been issued to Akshay. With that, he is now ready to travel back home,' Jaiswal said, adding that all efforts are being made so that he can return to India, to Kerala, as early as possible.

Source: ANI

The MEA said the well-being and safety of Indian seafarers abroad is of high importance to the government. No timeline was given on Friday for either Harish's flight home or a resolution of the Karachi crew dispute.