Pakistani naval ship collides with Indian warship in Arabian Sea

Indian defence ministry sources said the Pakistani naval ship approached at high speed and manoeuvred unsafely before the collision; no major damage was reported

India summons Pakistan's top diplomat to lodge protest over the incident in the Arabian Sea

In a rare incident in the Arabian Sea in recent years, a Pakistan Navy ship collided with an Indian Navy warship that was on a regular surveillance mission in the Arabian Sea, not too far from Oman, on Tuesday evening, sources in the Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday.

While the sources did not reveal the names of the ships involved in Tuesday’s incident, the Pakistani ship is thought to be the PNS Hunain, a Yarmook-class corvette, which was commissioned in 2024.

The Pakistani naval ship “closed in” on the Indian warship, which is larger in size, some 120-130 nautical miles east of the Oman coast, the sources said, adding that it came in “at high speed, manoeuvring in an unprofessional and unsafe manner. This led to a collision” at sea. No structural damage to the Indian warship was reported, the sources said.

Earlier on Wednesday, India summoned Saad Ahmad Warraich, the charge d’affaires of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, to lodge a strong protest over the incident.

A Ministry of External Affairs media statement said it was the “unacceptable and unprofessional conduct of Pakistani naval units at sea that led to a collision with a unit of the Indian Navy”. While the incident, which took place in international waters, did not cause any major damage, the conduct of the Pakistani naval ship was “in direct contravention” of Article 10 of the Agreement between India and Pakistan on Advance Notice on Military Exercises, Manoeuvres and Troops Movements of April 1991, the statement said.