9 Feb : The Navy has sent its warship INS Tabar, which successfully sank the sea brigand’s mother ship in Gulf of Aden last November, once again to continue anti-piracy operations.
"INS Tabar, a guided missile frigate, will replace INS Beas and the two have already had a rendezvous in the international waters off Somali coast recently," a Navy spokesperson said in New Delhi on Monday.
In October 2008, INS Tabar was the first Indian ship to be given the responsibility of fighting the pirate menace in waters that witness most of the sea trade in the region.
The government had decided to send the warship to Somali coast in the wake of increasing number of hijackings of merchant vessels by pirates operating from ports in Somalia near the Horn of Africa.
Apart from sinking the pirate vessel, INS Tabar had also successfully warded off attacks on both Indian and foreign merchant ships in those waters before returning to Mumbai.
The Navy had replaced Tabar with INS Mysore, a destroyer of the Delhi-class, in November last year. It was later replaced early this year with INS Beas, another frigate of the Brahmaputra class.
India is among maritime nations such as the US, France, Britain, Iran, South Korea and China to have sent their warships to Gulf of Aden to fight pirates.