Indian Navy neutralises pirate attack in the Gulf of Aden

Indian Navy neutralised a pirate attack planned on merchant vessels passing through the Gulf of Aden on Sunday.

Indian naval ship INS Delhi, a guided missile destroyer, has been deployed in the Gulf of Aden since July to escort and thwart pirate attacks on merchant vessels.

INS Delhi was escorting 12 merchant vessels, including an Indian flagged merchant vessel Jag Ratan, when a small-sized, corridor boat named Bareeda was detected 180 kilometres off the Somalian coast. The boat was moving towards the merchant vessels at very high speed.

INS Delhi tried to alert the boat on the Mercantile Marine Radio, but there was no response despite repeated calls.

Suspecting that it could be a pirate boat trying to launch an attack on the merchant vessels, marine commandos on INS Delhi headed towards Bareeda in interceptor boats. A helicopter from INS Delhi was also launched for aerial support.

After successfully intercepting the boat, marine commandos found eight people onboard seven of whom were Somali nationals, while one was a Yemeni. Marine commandos also recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition and excess fuel reserves onboard.

Navy officials said the eight were disarmed and were left with sufficient fuel to sail back to their harbour.