India hides Tehran's ship: Did they spare Iran?
Photo: India "hid" Tehran's ship (wikimedia.org)
India allowed an Iranian warship to dock at one of its ports, calling it a "humanitarian gesture," according to Reuters.
It is known that the ship Lavan docked in the port of Kochi on the same day a US submarine struck the Iranian frigate Dena following an urgent request from Tehran.
Lavan is a landing ship that, along with two other vessels, "were coming in for a fleet review and then they got, in a way, caught on the wrong side of the events," said Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
India received the docking request for Lavan on February 28, the day the conflict with Iran began. The request was urgent due to alleged technical issues with the ship.
"I think we really approached it from the point of view of humanity, of other than whatever the legal issues were," the minister added.
It is also reported that 183 crew members were accommodated at naval facilities in Kochi. Additionally, Sri Lankan authorities stated that their ships will escort the Iranian ship Bushehr to a harbor on the eastern coast and transfer most of its crew to a naval camp near Colombo.
What happened before
On March 4, a large-scale rescue operation took place off the coast of Sri Lanka near Galle after a distress signal was received from the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena.
About 180 people were on board the ship. The Sri Lankan Ministry of Health confirmed the rescue of 32 crew members.
Later, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth reported that the US military destroyed the Iranian ship in international waters using a torpedo.
Notably, on March 3, US President Donald Trump claimed that all Iranian naval forces had been destroyed.
