The ship was reported missing in the Black Sea on February 18, a day after it set sail with steel billets from Novorossisk in Russia to Bartin Limani in Turkey.

Initially, the vessel was suspected to have sunk in bad weather and questions were raised about its sea-worthiness. The Directorate-General of Shipping (DGS) had also said investigators had found a life raft and some buoys from M V Rezzak.

Today, the DGS for the first time said that “based on fresh inputs from various sources”, it was in touch with the International Maritime Bureau, Piracy Reporting Centre, Kuala Lumpur, and is pursuing them to trace the whereabouts of the vessel and the crew”.

P Mukundan, IMB’s director for ICC Commercial Crime Services in London, told The Indian Express that his office had begun probing the matter, adding that it was too early to say what may have happened to the ship and its crew.

“We are now closely monitoring the case. Piracy is rather unusual in the Black Sea, but now due to the circumstances around the missing ship, since we have not found any trace of the ship or the crew yet, we are keeping an open mind. At this stage we are looking at all possibilities,” he said.

Officials said investigators also needed to probe why M V Rezzak had been detained by port authorities in Novorossisk for more than two weeks before it set sail and whether the ship was expected to reach Bartin at all on February 18.

One senior official involved with the investigation in Turkey said that the ship had been inspected twice at the Russian port, adding that “it was an old ship and not in good condition”.

Besides, it had also been certified and allowed last November to carry dangerous goods — which in maritime classification includes combustible devices, sulphur and explosives, he added. “Rezzak had about 10 serious detainable deficiencies related to sailing conditions because of which the port authorities had taken a strict view,” he said. “Although it was steel billets, it still was held at the port for a long period as it was in a very poor condition and had not followed some very crucial maritime rules.”

Last week, the DGS had said that search teams had found two life boats, five life jackets with no names inscribed, and five life buoys M V Rezzak among other things.

But Captain Hakan Durmas, the chief of Turkey’s Marine Search and Rescue Operations, denied any such items were found and some other materials found could not be directly linked to M V Rezzak, raising new questions over the mystery behind the missing ship.

“At this stage, we will officially resume our search operations if we find any suspicious item on the sea bed or if we find traces of the ship or the body,” Durmas told The Indian Express by telephone. “Until then, we cannot say anything. We have recorded it as a ship which has gone missing in our books, not sunk, at least not yet.”

A DGS official responded saying their information was based on what they were told by investigators in Turkey and they would “look into” Durmas’s statement.