New Delhi: Pakistan has revived another war-time controversy with India with a former Pakistan Navy (PN) commander claiming that Indian 'claims' that PN submarine 'Ghazi' was sunk by them during the 1971 war was 'false and utterly absurd'.
Former top Indian Navy officers say the Pakistani submarine was destroyed in explosion of depth-charges dropped by destroyer INS Rajput, which the attacking Pakistani vessel had mistaken for aircraft carrier INS Vikrant and was pursuing it.
Commander (Retd) Muhammad Azam Khan said PNS Ghazi, which was then PN's only submarine with a capacity to reach Bay of Bengal and undertake operations on India's eastern sea, sank on the night of December 3-4, 1971 off Vishakhapatnam after an explosion.
"Since all the 82 crew members embraced 'shahadat' (martyrdom), it is unlikely that the mystery surrounding the circumstances in which Ghazi met her end will ever be unveiled," he said. "Still, the Indian claims of sinking Ghazi are not only false, but utterly absurd, to say the least," Khan claims.
He claimed that if PNS Ghazi had survived, the possibility of Indian aircraft carrier INS Vikrant operating in Bay of Bengal or deploying its fighter fleet or the Indian Navy carrying out a landing on the shores of then East Pakistan 'would have only remained a pipedream'.
However, the official history of Indian Navy Transition to Triumph, authored by Vice Admiral (Retd) G M Hiranandani, quotes naval records and top naval officials who commanded operations on the eastern waterfront as saying that INS Rajput was sent from Vizag to track down Ghazi.
Following the detection of 'severe disturbance' in the water, the INS Rajput closed in at speed and dropped two charges. "It has been subsequently established that the position where the charges were dropped was so close to the position of the wreck of the Ghazi that some damage to the latter is a very high probability," the book said, adding that the time of dropping of the charges, the explosion which was heard by the people of Vizag and that of a clock recovered from Ghazi, matched.
The former Pakistani naval officer credited another of their submarines, PNS Hangor, for the fatal torpedo attack on Indian frigate INS Khukri, which sank on December nine, 1971, with all its 18 officers and 176 sailors on board led by Capt M N Mulla being killed. After the attack, Hangor was chased and ceaselessly attacked for the next 72 hours by Indian naval ships and other assets, but it managed to elude the onslaught, Khan said.
(With agency inputs)
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