India, Pakistan trade protests after Arabian Sea naval collision

Pakistan on Wednesday summoned India’s Charge d’Affaires in Islamabad and lodged a protest over a collision between a Pakistani Navy vessel and an Indian Navy frontline warship in the Arabian Sea. Hours earlier, India had summoned Pakistan High Commission Charge d’Affaires Saad Warraich in New Delhi and lodged a strong protest over what it called the "unacceptable conduct" of a Pakistan Navy vessel that led to the incident.

Both sides gave sharply different accounts of the collision, which took place on September 15. Pakistan said the Indian vessel acted in a "highly provocative and unacceptable" manner inside Pakistan’s Exclusive Economic Zone, while India said the incident took place in international waters and followed "unprofessional and unsafe" manoeuvres by the Pakistani vessel.

In a statement, Pakistan’s Foreign Office said it summoned the Indian Charg d’Affaires in Islamabad and lodged a "strong protest" over what it described as a "highly provocative and unacceptable" action by an Indian Navy vessel during the Pakistan Navy’s biennial exercise SEASPARK-26. "While the Pakistan Navy was undertaking its biennial exercise SEASPARK-26, the Indian vessel carried out aggressive manoeuvres in dangerously close proximity of Pakistani naval ship, resulting in contact between the two vessels," it said.

The Foreign Office said the incident was a "serious violation" of international law as well as the 1991 bilateral agreement on Advance Notice on Military Exercises, Manoeuvres and Troop Movements, and said it risked escalating tensions in the region. "The Charge d’Affaires was asked to convey to the government of India that Pakistan strongly rejects this belligerent Indian action," it said. It added that the Indian side was urged to adhere strictly to international law and bilateral agreements, particularly those aimed at preventing incidents at sea.

According to official sources in New Delhi, the Pakistani Navy vessel Hunain closed in at high speed on a frontline Indian Navy warship that was on a routine surveillance mission in the north Arabian Sea on the evening of September 15. The Pakistani vessel manoeuvred in an unprofessional and unsafe manner, leading to a collision, they said. The sources said Hunain, an offshore patrol vessel, suffered heavy damage in the incident, while the Indian warship continued on its assigned task under mission deployment in the region and did not suffer any significant damage.

The Ministry of External Affairs said the incident did not cause any major damage, but the "conduct of the Pakistani naval ship was in direct contravention of Article 10 of the 1991 agreement between India and Pakistan on Advance Notice on Military Exercises, Manoeuvres and Troops Movements of April 1991". The collision is the first publicly known military-domain incident involving the two countries since the four-day hostilities in May 2025 in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack.