Sinking of INS Khukri: Cdr Bhushan to approach SC

According to him,the two officers fled from the scene in the face of enemy action.

“INS Khukri sank with about 200 officers and sailors entirely due to dereliction of duty of the commanding officers of INS Khukri and INS Kirpan. But both were given gallantry awards. The then C-in-C,Western Naval Command,Vice Admiral S N Kholi,wanted to save himself from blunders to avoid court martial,” Cdr Bhushan,86,told The Indian Express from Mumbai.

He said he would like to approach Supreme Court in this regard.

“I would like the gallantry awards given fraudulently to be withdrawn. The truth must come out,” he said.

According to Cdr Bhushan,INS Khukri was sunk by three torpedoes. He says the CO of INS Khukri was given a ship whose sonar range was 10 times less than that of the submarine — Pakistan’s Hangor — that hunted it down. Cdr Bhushan’s report says a new experimental device was connected to the sonar of INS Khukri in the heat of battle (December 7,1971),which restricted its speed and made it difficult to dodge torpedoes.

But the Indian Navy dismissed the findings of Cdr Bhushan’s report in 2005 itself.

Principal Director of Naval Operations,Integrated Headquarters,Ministry of Defence (Navy) pointed out on December 26,2005: “In subsequent years,the Navy established the position of Khukri’s wreck. It is different from the position Kirpan had reported by only 4 miles,whereas the position established by Cdr. Bhushan is 18 miles from where the wreck lies on the seabed. There is,therefore,no basis for Cdr. Bhushan’s concern that inaccuracy in Kirpan’s report of Khukri’s sinking either led to loss of life or affected the subsequent hunt for the Pakistani submarine.”

Meanwhile,the Chandigarh Bench of Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) has issued notice to the Centre on the petition of one of the survivor’s of INS Khukri,Chanchal Singh Gill.

Gill,ship wright artificer in the 1971 war,has also called for “a comprehensive inquiry by a commission” into the sinking of INS Khukri and audit of gallantry awards conferred on officers and sailors of the ship and INS Kirpan.