North Arabian Sea: India Protests Naval Collision, Pakistan's Hunain Limps Home

The first overt military friction between India and Pakistan since last year's ceasefire surfaced on September 15, when a Pakistan Navy corvette closed on an Indian warship at high speed during a routine surveillance run in the North Arabian Sea, roughly 220 km east of Oman. The resulting collision has triggered New Delhi's sharpest diplomatic response of the year — and left the Pakistani vessel limping back to port.

What happened: The Indian ship was on routine surveillance in international waters when PNS Hunain (F-273), a Yarmook-class corvette, closed in at high speed and executed what Indian officials called an unsafe and unprofessional manoeuvre, grazing the Indian vessel's starboard side. Defense sources credit the Indian captain's restraint during the approach with averting a more serious outcome.

The damage split: The Indian warship came through without functional or operational impact and stayed on mission. Hunain did not — sources describe a severe dent, possibly a crack, along one side of its hull, forcing it to abort patrol and return to harbor.

The breach: New Delhi's protest rests on Article 10 of the 1991 India-Pakistan Agreement on Advance Notice on Military Exercises, Manoeuvres and Troops Movements — the accord mandating a minimum 3-nautical-mile separation between naval units precisely to prevent this kind of incident.

The response: The Ministry of External Affairs summoned Pakistan's Chargé d'Affaires in New Delhi to lodge a formal protest. India's own Chargé d'Affaires in Islamabad was instructed to mirror the protest directly to Pakistan's Foreign Ministry — a deliberate two-track signal. Islamabad, notably, has stayed silent: no coverage has surfaced in Pakistan's English-language press.