India-Pakistan Warships Collide in Arabian Sea — SkimNews
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- PNS Hunain collided with an Indian Navy warship on September 15 in the north Arabian Sea, 220 kilometers east of Oman, during Pakistan's biennial SEASPARK-26 exercise.
- India's MEA summoned Pakistan's Chargé d'Affaires Saad Ahmad Warraich, calling the Pakistani navy's conduct "unacceptable and unprofessional" and citing a violation of Article 10 of the 1991 Agreement requiring the two navies' ships to stay three nautical miles apart.
- Pakistan's Foreign Office countered that the Indian vessel carried out "aggressive maneuvers in dangerously close proximity" to the Pakistani ship, placing blame on New Delhi for the contact.
- Indian defense sources gave conflicting accounts across three outlets: Hindustan Times said the Pakistani vessel approached at high speed, First Post said it shadowed and crossed at the bow, and The Hindu identified the Indian ship as INS Godavari on routine surveillance—contradicting the article's own headline designation of INS Kolkata.
- PNS Hunain sustained damage and returned to harbor, while the Indian vessel suffered minor damage and continued its mission.
- The previous India-Pakistan naval collision occurred in 2011 when PNS Babur brushed past INS Godavari in the Gulf of Aden, and this incident marks the first open military tension between the two countries since the four-day May 2025 clashes.
Why it matters: The collision marks the first open India-Pakistan military tension since the four-day May 2025 clashes and violated a 1991 agreement requiring the two navies to stay three nautical miles apart. PNS Hunain returned to harbor damaged; both sides summoned each other's top diplomats—the kind of escalation the bilateral military confidence-building framework was specifically designed to prevent.
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