Pakistan military claims it blocked Indian submarine incursion

Pakistan’s military claims it “detected and blocked” an Indian military submarine from entering Pakistani territorial waters earlier this week.

The Pakistani military said in a statement on Tuesday that the attempted incursion by the Indian submarine had occurred on Saturday night. It said the submarine had been “prematurely detected and tracked by [the Pakistani navy’s] long-range maritime patrol aircraft.”

“During the prevailing security milieu, a strict monitoring watch has been kept by Pakistan Navy to safeguard maritime frontiers of Pakistan,” the statement read.

A video recorded by the Pakistani military and circulating on media purportedly shows infrared footage of a submarine mast taken on October 16 between 11:18 pm and 11:36 pm local time. The geographic location tag for the “target” in the footage places the vessel approximately 283 km south of the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi.

It is the third time Pakistan’s military claims it has detected an Indian submarine since 2016. The two previous claims occurred in November 2016 and March 2019.

There was no immediate comment from India.