The government is mulling over a proposal to deploy armed guards in merchant ships to fight pirates on the high seas, union minister for shipping G K Vasan has revealed in a letter.

Vasan, in a letter to Goa's Congress MP Shantaram Naik who had raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha, has said, "World powers have to put in more efforts to thwart such criminal activities or else even the terrorists will resort to piracy as one of the methods of terrorising the world community."

Naik had stressed that the ship owners should be allowed to carry arms for self-defence against pirates as the hijacking of vessels has risen in recent times.

Vasan said the Indian navy is carrying out anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since October 2008. A total of 25 Indian navy ships have been deployed in the Gulf of Aden since then, and, a total of 1,573 ships, including 1,402 foreign flagged vessels from different countries, have been escorted by them in the Gulf since October 2008.

Vasan pointed out that not a single ship under the Indian escort has been hijacked till date and 29 piracy attempts were effectively thwarted. In recent naval operations , the Indian navy neutralized four mother ships and apprehended 120 pirates, he added.