New Delhi, Dec 02: Strongly defending the sinking of
a Thai fishing trawler in Gulf of Aden a fortnight ago, Navy
chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta on Tuesday said the Indian warship was
within law and had done nothing wrong by striking at a pirated
ship in self defence.
"I want to set the record straight, there is nothing that
the navy has done wrong. And it is perfectly within law. Even
if the ship had been pirated just at that morning," Mehta told
reporters here.
He said INS Tabar, a stealth guided missile frigate, had
been in anti-piracy patrol for over a month now and it had
done a commendable work.
However, he expressed unhappiness over the claims of a
Thai fishing company, and said the ship had been pirated and
was put to use by the Somali sea brigands for activities that
was against the laws of the seas.
"The fact remains that the Thai trawler was a pirated
trawler. For all practical purposes and all rules of
engagement the world over is that if they fire at men of war,
we jolly well retaliate," Mehta said.
He asserted that further investigation had clearly
revealed that the fishing trawler was used in the Gulf of Aden
for a very long time for activities it should not have been
doing.
Questioning the motives of the fishing trawler, the Navy
chief said the ship had stocked large quantities of ammunition
that led to it breaking into a huge, bright fireball after the
Indian Navy warship fired at it.
Meanwhile, pointing out that the security environment in the South
Asian region was often described as fragile, Mehta said there
were several happenings around here, which needed to be looked
into.
"And what the Navy does is to develop capability to
operate across the full spectrum of conflict, which means from
the benign role to full-scale war. These are the capabilities
that we need to build for ourselves," he said.
Noting that there were many threats in the region, the
Navy chief, referring to Pakistan, said the armed forces
certainly have shifted focus from threat-specific to
capability-specific development.
"For many years, we have been very centric on specific
threats. If Pakistan gets something, then India too should get
something in return or vice versa," he added.
"We have gone well past that stage. We develop
capabilities, work on our maritime capabilities plan, a
long-term plan, which we have for the next 15 years and it
keeps adding as we move along with the intention that we have
the capability to do multi-tasking. Therefore, we build up our
forces in that manner," he pointed out.
Stating that Navy strongly favoured indigenisation, Mehta
said it has 32 warships and six submarines under construction
in India's own shipyards.
"We also have orders for many more and we also have
some coming in from abroad. As you know, we have INS
Vikramaditya (formerly Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier) and
follow-on frigates from Russia, and two tankers, which are
being built with Italian help. In the future, we will have
more submarine orders," he stressed.
No gun running between TN and Sri Lanka
The Navy today denied there was
gun-running between the Tamil Nadu and the Sri Lankan coasts
even as there are fears that the LTTE would try and replenish
its diminishing weapon stock in its fight against the island
nation's Army.
"It is an emphatic NO," Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta
told reporters here today when asked about reports of arms
smuggling between the two countries.
But Mehta said there were smaller crimes such as
smuggling of kerosene and other essential items through the
sea route that have come to light.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, December 02, 2008, 00:00