New Delhi: Kicking up a controversy, a Deputy Inspector General of the Coast Guard has now claimed that the suspected terrorists onboard the Pakistan terror boat off the Porbandar coast in Gujarat did not blow themselves up.

DIG BK Loshali claimed at a function recently that the Coast Guard had blown up the vessel on the night of December 31.

According to a report published in an English daily, DIG Loshali had ordered that the boat be blown up, saying “Blow the boat off…We don’t want to serve them biryani.”

The claim clearly contradict the government’s official statement suggesting that the suspected terrorists had blown themselves up.

According to Defence Ministry officials, the boat was intercepted by the Coast Guards in the Arabian Sea but the four occupants on board set the vessel afire and exploded it before it sank with them.

The incident resembled the operation undertaken by terrorists from Karachi who had come in a boat before they launched their dreaded attack in Mumbai in Novermber, 2008.

An intelligence-based midnight operation was conducted by the Coast Guard ships and aircraft to intercept the suspect fishing boat, approximately 365 km off Porbander in Gujarat, on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1 after a hot pursuit.

The hot pursuit continued for nearly one hour and the Coast Guard ship managed to stop the fishing boat after firing warning shots.