MUMBAI, March 30 -- Venkatrao Jammu realised the brutal reality of an Iranian prison not through a warning, but through absence. One morning at Bandar Abbas City Central Jail, the 35-year-old third officer woke to find the adjacent bed empty. "I asked a roommate what had happened," said Jammu, a seafarer with 17 years at sea. "He said the man had been executed. I had only asked out of curiosity. I did not expect that answer." Jammu was among 18 Indian crew members of Valiant Row, a cargo vessel operated by Dubai-based Global Tankers Private Limited, who were detained by the Iranian Navy in December last year after their ship was intercepted in international waters and taken to Iran's port city of Bandar Abbas. On March 29, the seafarers landed in Mumbai, ending weeks of detention, fear and uncertainty. The vessel had sailed from Ras Isa port in Yemen on October 22, 2025, to assist another company ship, Global Star, after its generators failed. According to the crew, they were providing power supply support when the situation spiralled out of control. Ketan Mehta, 30, the ship's third engineer, still recalls the moment vividly. "It was December 8. I was about to sit down for lunch when I heard hundreds of bullets hitting the iron walls," he said. "More than 300 rounds were fired. Within minutes, the Iranian Navy boarded the ship. It was like an action movie, but real." The crew was herded into the mess room, handcuffed, and stripped of all documents except their passports. Their phones were seized, and confusion reigned. "We didn't understand what was happening," Mehta said. "Initially, we had our own food, but that ran out. After that, we survived on whatever was given to us." Food and water soon became scarce. "We were often left starving for days," said Maqsood Alam, 32. "Fresh water was limited. The desalination machine would take hours just to produce a bucket. We survived on drops to drink and bathed using seawater." Iranian authorities alleged that the vessel was smuggling around 6,000 metric tonnes of diesel and that the captain possessed $60 million in cash. The crew maintains that the cargo was only very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) and says they were never formally informed of the charges. "We came to know about the allegations through Iranian media," a crew member said. For captain Vijay Kumar, 45, the ordeal took a deeply personal toll. "My 14-year-old daughter called me after hearing the news," he said. "She asked me to swear on her that I had done nothing wrong. That broke me." On January 6, ten crew members, including Jammu and Mehta, were taken to Bandar Abbas City Central Jail. The remaining crew members were held on board the vessel under guarded conditions. Venkatesh Nandik, 25, a seafarer, said restrictions eased after a few days, making it feel "like an open jail". They were released on February 28 after signing documents stating that the Navy had not mistreated them. The group included captain Vijay Kumar. "At first, I thought we were being taken to a hotel," Mehta said. "When we saw barbed wire, we realised it was a jail." When they asked how long they would be held, a guard raised four fingers. "We thought it meant four days," Mehta said. "We had no idea what lay ahead." Inside, they encountered hundreds of other detained seafarers, some held for over two years. "They tried to console us, but it only made us more fearful," Jammu said. "We thought we might meet the same fate." The uncertainty deepened when officials handed them documents in Persian. An Afghan inmate, Naeem, who understood Hindi, helped translate. "He told us we could be released on bail, but the amount was Rs.100 crore," Alam said. "That was impossible."Days turned into weeks as they waited anxiously for their names to be called over the prison loudspeaker, their eyes fixed on a yellow door that symbolised freedom. Relief finally came on February 27. "When my name was called, I ran," said Alam. "Within minutes, we were out." Officials from the Indian Embassy shifted them to a hotel in Bandar Abbas, but anxiety persisted. "We called the embassy every day, asking when we would return," Mehta said. Their stay coincided with the United States and Israel launching coordinated military strikes on Iran beginning February 28. "There were explosions all around," Jammu recalled. "Our hotel was between an air force and naval base. The windows shook with every blast. At one point, we just accepted whatever would happen." Determined to return home, the crew arranged a risky road journey on March 23 to the Iran-Armenia border, paying $3,000 (approximately Rs.2.84 lakh) with assistance from the Indian Embassy. After a gruelling 26-hour drive to Jolfa and a further journey to Yerevan, Armenia's capital, they finally boarded a flight to India on March 28. The touchdown in Mumbai was more than just emotional. While Jammu headed to a Kannada restaurant for his first cup of chai after returning, his fellow sailors marked their freedom in simple ways. Mehta said his first biryani in months felt extraordinary....