'Indian Submarine' Pakistan Claims To Have 'Stopped' From Entering Its Territorial Waters Was 150 Nautical Miles South Of Karachi

On Tuesday (19 September), Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations or ISPR claimed that the Pakistan Navy had detected and stopped an Indian submarine from entering its territorial waters.

In a statement, ISPR said the Indian submarine was trying to enter Pakistan's territorial waters but was "prematurely detected and tracked".

"It is the third incident of its kind wherein an Indian submarine has been prematurely detected and tracked by Pakistan Navy's Long Range Maritime Patrol Aircraft," ISPR's statement read.

"Pakistan’s highly professional & vigilant navy interdicted an Indian submarine trying to enter our waters surreptitiously...," Pakistan's National Security Advisor, Moeed Yusuf, claimed yesterday.

The coordinates on the imagery, however, show that the submarine was in international waters, over 150 nautical miles south of Karachi.

The submarine was at the same distance from the Indian Navy’s Okha base, called INS Dwarka, in Gujarat. It was operating nearly 400 nautical miles from the Indian naval base at Mumbai.

Details on the imagery put out by Pakistan show it was taken on 16 October, between 23:18 and 23:36 hours. However, it is not clear if this represents Pakistan Standard Time or universal time.

These details, however, puncture Pakistan's claim of stopping the submarine from entering the country's territorial waters.

A diesel-electric boat, like the Indian Navy's Kalvari-class submarines, has to snorkel frequently to recharge its batteries.

The process of snorkeling involves travelling just below the surface of the water with the submarine’s periscope and generator exhaust pipe above the surface. Submarines have to rise to periscope depth and extend the snort mast above the water line — every day or two in some cases — so as to ingest air needed for running noisy diesel generators (which require atmospheric air) to charge their batteries.