‘Not credible’: India reacts to Pakistan Navy’s claim of blocking its submarine from entering its territory

New Delhi: Pakistan’s claim on Tuesday that its navy blocked an Indian submarine from entering into its waters last week was not credible as the submarine’s location, as per the details that came out, was way beyond the country’s territorial water limits, people familiar with maritime operations said on Wednesday. They said Pakistan’s territorial waters extends up to 12 nautical miles from its coast. People familiar with maritime operations stated that the location of the submarine — as per details that came out — was 150 nautical miles from Karachi port which is beyond the limit of Pakistani waters. There is no official comment by the Indian Navy on the Pakistani claim. The Pakistan military said in a statement on Tuesday that the incident occurred on 16 October when an Indian submarine was detected by a Pakistan Navy (PN) patrol aircraft. The navy “detected and blocked the Indian submarine on 16 Oct 21 from entering into Pakistani waters,” according to the statement. It said that during the prevailing security milieu, a strict monitoring watch has been kept by the Pakistan Navy to safeguard maritime frontiers of the country. According to the statement, it is the third incident of its kind during which an Indian Naval Submarine has been prematurely detected and tracked by the Pakistan Navy’s Long Range Maritime Patrol Aircraft. The army also shared a short footage of the purported incident. An incident of this nature was last reported in March 2019 when the navy had detected and thwarted an attempted entry by an Indian submarine, the statement claimed. “The Pakistan Navy used its specialised skills to ward off the submarine, successfully keeping it from entering Pakistani waters,” PN had claimed in a statement at the time. It claimed that another reported attempt by an Indian submarine was made in November 2016 which was tracked and pushed clear out of Pakistan’s waters.