INS Sindhurakshak decommissioned four years after massive fire which killed 18 navy personnel

The Indian Navy has decommissioned the INS Sindhurakshak submarine four years after 18 navy personnel were killed due to a fire on board the submarine. A report in The Indian Express said that the navy was yet to decide whether the submarine will be sunk or used for target practice. [caption id=“attachment_3580093” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] INS Sindhurakshak was airlifted in 2014. PTI[/caption] Sources also told the newspaper that the decision to decommission the submarine was taken after suggestions from two Board of Inquiries set up by the Ministry of Defence. On 14 August, 2013, the INS Sindhurakshak — then a newly refurbished Indian submarine — sank with 18 sailors at a naval dockyard in Mumbai. The submarine was a Russian-made Kilo-class diesel-electric submarine which was ninth of the ten Kilo-class submarines in the Indian navy. A year after the incident, the 16-year-old submarine was airlifted and anchored at South Backwater in the Naval Dock after salvage operations by Resolve Marine India Ltd for around Rs 240 crore, The Times of India had reported. The sinking of Sindhurakshak had marked the beginning of a series of mishaps in the navy in 2013 which ultimately led to resignation of the then Navy chief Admiral DK Joshi on 26 February, 2014. Joshi’s resignation was the first time in 15 years (in 2014) that a navy chief had to leave office due to a controversy after Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat was sacked by the NDA government in 1998 when George Fernandes was the defence minister. With inputs from PTI