Indian Navy 'proactively' deploying fleet to keep pirates at bay, says Chief Admiral Hari Kumar
Indian Navy is proactively deploying its fleet to keep the pirates away and confine them in their waters, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Hari Kumar said on Wednesday. After unveiling the indigenously manufactured Drishti 10 Starliner Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) by Adani Defence and Aerospace for the Navy, Hari Kumar said there have been about 35 drone attacks on ships largely on Israel-owned or flagged or related vessels in the Red Sea, North and Central Arabian Sea during the last 40-42 days.
Without taking names, he said the immediate neighbours of India collectively hold a very large inventory of UAVs and therefore, it's only prudent that the country and its armed forces continue to harness resident expertise in the domain.
«Recently we have had only two incidents (attempts of pirates to highjack ships).
Both were not Indian flagged vessels, but in the second case we had Indian crew so we had to respond. So we boarded and rescued the crew...So we are now very proactively deploying our units there to ensure that these pirates keep away,» he told reporters.
The Indian Navy on Friday thwarted the attempted hijacking of Liberian-flagged vessel MV Lila Norfolk in the North Arabian Sea and rescued all its crew members including 15 Indians.
The Chief of Naval Staff further said the anti-piracy operations have been going on since 2008 and the Navy has deployed over 105 ships over the period.
Hari Kumar, replying to a query on drone attacks on ships, said they are doing forensic analysis of the debris of the three ships which were attacked.
Earlier addressing the gathering, he said it is only prudent that the country and the armed forces continue to harness «our resident expertise» in the domain of UAVs as «both our
