Dozens of warships, including the INS Vikramaditya Carrier Battle Group and nuclear submarines, left a massive maritime exercise and were deployed amid simmering tensions with Pakistan, the Navy said.
Accrording to the released statement, the move was designed to “prevent, deter and defeat any misadventure by Pakistan in the maritime domain”.
The Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise (TROPEX 19 is India’s largest war games involving the Navy, Air Force and Army. The drills involve about 60 ships of the Indian Navy,, 12 ships of the Indian Coast Guard and 60 aircraft.
Admiral Sunil Lanba CNS to preside over the debrief of Exercise TROPEX 2019, the largest biennial exercise of #IndianNavy at Kochi tomorrow (representative pics) @SpokespersonMoD @DefenceMinIndia @adgpi @IndiaCoastGuard @IAF_MCC pic.twitter.com/hOYcSLgNVp
— SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) March 17, 2019
Nonetheless, the statement did not revealed details about the time of the deployment or names of the submarines in question. The Indian Navy has only two ships of this class, the INS ‘Chakra,’ an Akula-class attack submarine leased from Russia, and the INS ‘Arihant,’ an indigenous ship carrying up to 12 ballistic missiles.
