“Police … control … fishing boat sinking!” That was all that Pavithran, the only senior civil police officer on duty at the Kozhikode Kasaba police station heard. It was a wireless message in a fragmented voice. There was no response from the control room. On August 26 afternoon, he was only one person to have heard the message that came only once.
Pavithran waited for the message to come again, but there was only silence. It was a cry of fear, as if someone was on the verge of death. The wireless at the station did not come alive again. But Pavithran was sure that he had heard that cry of fear of death.
He called the control room to clear his suspicion. The staff on duty said no such message had been received. They also listened to recorded messages to see if they had somehow missed it. They could not find anything remotely suspicious. Pavithran immediately contacted the telecommunications wing that handles the entire wireless in the district. But nobody had heard such a message.
But the civil police officer was not ready to give up. He was sure that he had heard such a message. His suspicion and his determination not to give up ended up in saving the lives of six fishermen who were about to drown in the sea.
In addition to messages to the control room, FM conversations also rarely reach police wireless. At first he thought that must have been such a message, but he could not forget the screams of fear.
After contacting the control room and telecommunications, Pavithran informed a friend who was working at Marine Enforcement that a fishing boat had crashed somewhere. No one in the Marine Enforcement, who was deployed on deputation from the police in Kadalundi and Bekal, had received such a message. But they did not ignore the information from Kasaba Police station and passed it on to the Coast Guard and others, including fishermen.
They immediately launched a search and found a fishing boat 17 nautical miles off the coast of Kadalundi. The occupants of other boat rescued all the six people on board. Had it been a little late, those lives would have been lost.
In the normal course, duty officers must pay attention only to the messages that normally come to the respective police station. Despite the usual hustle and bustle at the station, the police officer says it was destiny that he happened to pay attention to the message and went after it for no reason.
The fishing boat had ventured beyond the limits permitted and it was beyond the ranges of both mobile phones and wireless system. In the desperate situation, one of the fishermen pressed a random button in the walkie-talkie, and requested for help. It was this message that reached Kasaba station and caught the attention of Pavithran.
The Marine Enforcement team called the police station after rescuing the fishermen and providing them with medical assistance. It was then that Pavithran realised that his determination had rescued six lives.
The district police chief summoned Pavithran and congratulated him and announced a reward. Pavithran believes that the voice crying for help that came only once was destined for his ear only and that it was his fate to hear it.
