When MV Jahan Moni sailed from the port of Tanjung Buli of Indonesia on November 11 last year with 43,150 tonnes of nickel ore, little did its crew knew what lay ahead for them.

It stopped at a Singapore port for loading more goods and left for Greece on November 27.

On December 5, it was hijacked from a place in the Arabian Sea, 170 nautical miles from Lakkha Island of India and about 300 nautical miles from the Cochin Port.

Officials of the ship in Chittagong got the first message over the phone from the ship's captain that it was attacked by pirates around 3:30pm on December 5.

At 0942 Coordinated Universal Time, Nato circulated a warning that "a merchant vessel was reported under attack by pirates/1 skiffs in position 08°11N 071°43E".

A little later, the Nato message read: "This vessel has been hijacked".

Chittagong received another call from the ship an hour after the second message. All the crew who gathered at the bridge room of the ship, communicated the officials till 5:30pm.

From satellite track through ship security alert system, the officials came to know that the ship was heading towards Somalian coast.

The ship anchored near Somali coast on December 11 while the pirates for the first time contacted the officials around 2:30pm on December 12 and several crew were also allowed to talk with the family members.

The pirates demanded a ransom of 9 million US dollar on the day and the negotiation started by a person named as Leon for them. Meherul Karim, general manager of the ship, could talk with the captain of the ship Farid Ahmed on December 24.

He informed that the stock of pure drinking water and fuel of the ship was about to finish. The negotiation regarding ransom was verbally finalised on February 22 while the officials of the ship got written confirmation regarding release of the pirates.

The Bangladesh flag carrier with 26 crew aboard was freed on March 14, 99 days after being hijacked.