Sources have told The Indian Express that reports from Coast Guard authorities said Solanki's “headless body” was recovered from the 45-foot trawler about five nautical miles from the Mumbai coast during an aerial recce of the waters of Arabian Sea.

A second decapitated body, with its hands tied, was spotted off the Nhava Sheva coast today, said sources in the Mumbai Police. The Crime Branch is now probing if this body could be that of a crew member thrown off Kuber. “We get the impression that there were two persons who may have helped them cover the stretch between the mother ship and the Mumbai coast. They could have killed these two men after their purpose, their navigational skills, was served,” said an officer from the investigating team.

Also, four bodies have been found floating in the waters of Jakhau near Gujarat, two days after the terrorists attacked Mumbai. The investigators have begun probing the identity of these bodies, first checking if these could be the men reported to be missing from aboard Kuber.

“Fishermen at Jakhau have come with the information that they spotted four bodies in the sea. We believe these bodies are of the fishermen who were aboard Kuber before it was hijacked,” said Manish Lodhari, general secretary of the National Fisherworkers Forum.

It's also confirmed that the terrorists got off Kuber and boarded an inflatable dinghy — Gemini craft — which they used to land on Mumbai's shore. Sources said that one of the terrorists caught is said to have admitted that Kuber had only one Gemini craft on board.

A Gemini craft is ideal for short-distance travel in the sea but not for long hauls. Interestingly, the serial number on a brand new Yamaha Out Board Motor (OBM) engine on the craft -- now with the Mumbai police -- had been obliterated. “They even removed the manufacturers' stickers on it,” the source said, underlining once again the level of planning that preceded the attack.

Sources said only about four litres of fuel was found to have been used in Gemini craft's 20-litre tank. “So we are working on the probability that a mother ship dropped the terrorists into a couple of Indian fishing boats (including Kuber) to avoid detection in Indian waters. Once they reached close to the alighting point, they lowered themselves into smaller crafts they had with them, splitting into groups for the attacks,” the source said.

The Coast Guard and the Navy, meanwhile, have been “instructed” to look for more boats and small crafts in the area, since at least one more boat like Kuber was likely to have been put to use. “The Kuber ferried only eight of them so a second boat must have ferried the remaining,” the source said.

A senior Gujarat police officer said Customs records said Kuber left on November 13 but local fishermen said it left on November 14. This could mean that it returned discreetly to Porbandar after leaving port on November 13 -- as per official records -- and then went on another journey a day later. Police are also investigating why the boat, which had sophisticated VHF and GPS systems on board, did not attempt to contact Indian security agencies.

Kuber (registration number 2302) was registered in the name of a resident of Kharvawad in Porbandar, Vinod Masani. Masani, sources added, owns five more fishing boat, including the two that had been seized by Pakistani agencies earlier for trespassing into their waters.

Masani's brother, Hiralal, holds the power of attorney over Kuber. Hiralal, in turn, passed on the rights to a sub-contractor (name kept anonymous). It was this sub contractor who used to employ crew in Kuber, sources said.

Meanwhile, although nothing incriminating was found on MV Alpha, the ship intercepted yesterday by the Coast Guard, interrogation of the crew is still underway.

The MV Alpha is said to have a predominantly Ukrainian crew and according to reliable sources, investigators were not ruling out the possibility that the crew may have been bribed to take aboard these terrorists pretending to be smugglers who needed to be dropped off in Indian waters at a certain point on small boats. The MV Alpha is said to have left Karachi on November 26.

In which case, sources said, MV Alpha could have been the “mother ship” but this is still not established. Either way, sources said, the terrorists did receive extraordinary support from their handlers who could locate the Kuber through GPS so that the terrorists alighted in that general area on the high seas.

Having hijacked the Indian trawler, the terrorists retained one of the crew members both for navigation as well as to deal with any chance spotting by coastguard patrols. Now, the owner of the trawler Vinod Masani has been called to Mumbai for questioning and identification of the crew.

MV Alpha is being brought to Indian waters.