Iranian warship sunk by the US was sailing home after exhibition

Questions in India over the sinking

India has long viewed the Indian Ocean as central to its security, with its navy regularly conducting patrols and multinational exercises to safeguard key sea lanes used for global trade and energy shipments. It has also traditionally sought to maintain a careful diplomatic balance in tensions between the U.S. and Iran while emphasizing on diplomacy and talks.

Indian opposition leaders, however, on Thursday questioned the government’s lack of response to the incident, saying the sinking of the warship so close to India’s maritime neighborhood warranted an official statement.

The opposition Indian National Congress party slammed what it called “silence” from Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘s government.

“The conflict has reached our backyard, with an Iranian warship sunk in the Indian Ocean. Yet the Prime Minister has said nothing,” opposition leader Rahul Gandhi wrote in a post on X.

Kanwal Sibal, a former diplomat who served as India’s foreign secretary from 2002 to 2003, wrote on X that India was “far from politically or militarily responsible for the U.S. attack,” but its “responsibility is at a moral and human plane.”

“The U.S. has ignored India’s sensitivities,” Sibal said. “The ship was in these waters because of India’s invitation.”

Saaliq reported from New Delhi. Associated Press journalist Bharatha Mallawarachi in Colombo, Sri Lanka, contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to show that the Sri Lankan spokesperson said the second Iranian vessel was in the maritime area of Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone, not in its territorial waters.