Men carrying guns and rocket-propelled grenade-launchers were patrolling the upper deck of the ship.

“The INS Tabar asked the vessel to stop for investigation after getting suspicious,” Navy spokesperson Commander Nirad Sinha said. “On repeated calls, the vessel’s threatening response was that she would blow up the naval warship if it closed her. The vessel continued its threatening calls and subsequently fired upon INS Tabar.”

The Tabar retaliated in self-defence with heavy machine guns and sunk the ship. “As a result of the firing by INS Tabar, fire broke out on the vessel and explosions were heard, possibly due to exploding ammunition that was stored on the vessel,” Commander Sinha said.

The two speedboats tried to escape, and the Tabar gave chase to the faster of the two craft. However, by the time it caught up, the pirates had abandoned the boat, the spokesman said. The other speedboat too had vanished in the darkness. There were no survivors, either from the sunken ‘mother vessel’ or the speedboats, the Navy said.

Piracy is the most lucrative business in the collapsed state of Somalia, and several pirate groups operate in the waters off the Horn of Africa. The sinking of a ‘mother vessel’ is expected to be a major deterrent for the gangs which have hijacked more than 60 merchant vessels this year in these waters.

The International Maritime Bureau, a specialised department of the non-profit International Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the Navy’s aggressive action. “It is exactly the kind of action we need against the Somali pirates, who have so far been operating with impunity on this major international water route. For the International Maritime Bureau this is a significant development at times like these and we congratulate the Indian Navy for this robust action,” said IMB (India) chief, Capt Pottengal Mukundan.

... contd.