The US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said better intelligence was needed for a land attack on pirate bases to be considered, the BBC reported. Speaking at a security conference in Bahrain, he called for shipping companies to do more to protect their vessels traveling through the Arabian Sean and Indian Ocean.

The captured pirates had a cache of arms and equipment, including seven AK-47 assault rifles, three machine guns, and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a statement from the Indian government said.

The pirates would be handed over to the appropriate authorities, the statement added.
Last month, India's navy said it had sunk a pirate "mother vessel" off Somalia. But it later emerged that the vessel was actually a Thai fishing trawler that had been seized by pirates off Yemen.