New Delhi - The captain and six crew members of a ship taken by Somali pirates returned home to India Tuesday after two months in captivity and called for a concerted effort to end piracy in the Gulf of Aden.

"It is a very serious issue," Captain Prabhat Goyal said. "The Gulf of Aden cannot be closed or kept at ransom because all of us, either on the east or west of it, will suffer. The route has huge economic proportions attached to it."

Goyal, who described piracy in Somali waters as "maritime terrorism," and the other freed sailors from the Japanese ship MV Stolt Valor reached the international airport in New Delhi from Muscat.

The captain added that a concerted action by navies and the "hot pursuit" of pirates was the only way to prevent further hijackings along the busy trading route.

The Stolt Valor with 22 crew members, including 18 Indians, was captured by Somali pirates off the Yemeni coast September 15 while it was headed for Mumbai from the Suez Canal.

The pirates took the vessel to the Somali coast and demanded a ransom of 6 million dollars, local news reports said. They released the ship on November 16 after reportedly getting 2.5 million dollars from the ship's owners.

The Indian crew members have been returning home in batches since Monday when five Indian crew members returned to the western city of Mumbai.

Recalling their experience, sailor Rajinder Malik said, "The pirates tortured us mentally and physically. They often fired in the air and around us to terrify us."

"The food was often of bad quality and the pirates, about 35 of them, sometimes fought even among themselves," he said. "The crew was in a state of shock."

"We did not know if we would ever meet our families," Goyal said, adding, "The experience was very bad, and the impression the hijacking has left on me is unimaginable".

Despite having gone through a harrowing time at the hands of the pirates, the captain and his crew said they would go sailing again.

"I'll go by the Gulf of Aden again and again. I am not scared," Goyal said, adding that he had to continue with his job because he was the only breadwinner in his family.

Sixty-three incidents of piracy have been recorded in waters off the Somali Coast and the Gulf of Aden in the first nine months of this year, the International Maritime Bureau said.

The surge in piracy has prompted increased patrols in the Gulf of Aden by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Russia, US-led coalition forces, India and France.

Seventeen vessels are in the hands of pirates along with more than 300 hostages. The London-based think tank Chatham House said in October that pirates had received an estimated 30 million dollars in ransoms this year. (dpa)