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Navy attacks Karachi : Pak ships sunk
Navy Missile boats rain destruction on Karachi Harbour - Pak Merchant ship captured

Dec 09 : BOMBAY: The Indian Navy had repeated the attack on Karachi with devastating results yesterday night. The Pakistani Naval base of Karachi was attacked at around 2345 Hours and vast damage has been inflicted on both shore as well as ships in the vicinity.

The Navy force sent to attack had two components. One detachment consisted of two fast frigates INS Trishul and INS Talwar along with the OSA Missile boat, INS Vinash was tasked with attacking Karachi.

The second detachment , which consisted of the Flag Ship of the Western fleet, the Cruiser INS Mysore and the Hunt class destroyer INS Ranjit and the frigate INS Betwa was tasked with shelling the port of Gwadar off the Makran Coast. The Petya class patrol boat, INS Kadmatt was to join the first task force but had to fall back due to technical snags.

Approaching Karachi, INS Talwar under Cdr S S Kumar engaged a mechanised Dhow of the Pakistani Navy and sunk it with gunfire. Then the ships proceeded towards Karachi Harbour.

About 12 miles from their Target, Cdr K M V Nair, CO of INS Trishul gave the targets to the Missile boat captain Lt Cdr Jerath, who immediately launched four Styx

There was one Osa Missile boat among the flottilla that attacked Karachi last night.

Missiles against targets indicated to him. Three of the missiles hit ships anchored in Karachi were hit. The Panamian ship Gulf Star was hit and sunk as was the American ship Venus Challenger. The British ship Hamrattan was damaged killing three of the British crew.

The Pakistani Navy's Oil Tanker Dacca which was anchored outside was also hit and badly damaged. There was no challenge from the Pakistani Navy. It seems that all of thier ships have withdrawn to the relative safety of the Karachi harbour.

The last missile was fired against a shore based target. It found its target when it hit one of the Oil tanks at Keamari resulting in a huge fire fed by the Petroleum Oil stored in the tanks.

The fire started at the Keamari Oil tanks could be seen as far as 60 Nautical miles into the sea. Canberra pilots returning from a diversionary raid on Masroor airbase reported the fire as the "Biggest Bloody blaze in whole of south asia".

Meanwhile the second task force heading for Gwadar encountered a Merchant ship off the coast of Makran. The RT Officer intercepted the Merchant ship transmitting a message to Karachi reporting the position of thier ships.

Almost immediately, INS Mysore (under Cdr Russi Gandhi) fired some shots across the Merchant Ship's bow, which then flew a white flag to signal surrender.

The Merchant ship turned out to be the Pakistani Madhumati which was then taken charge of and bought back to the Bombay port today. The Madhumati has more than Rupees Two Crore worth of material in form of rice and cotton headed for the Pakistani shores.

All our ships and missile boats have safely been recovered back to our shores. The Pakistani navy had not even been given time to recover from its wounds inflicted in the last raid on the fourth of December. The Navy has once again established its presence and control over shipping in the Arabian sea.