NEW DELHI: The sinking of Pakistani submarine Ghazi in the 1971 Indo-Pak war may have been one of the high points of India’s first-ever emphatic military victory but there are no records available with naval authorities on how the much-celebrated feat was pulled off.
As a debate rages over a TOI report on the destruction of all records of the 1971 Bangladesh war at the Eastern Army Command headquarters in Kolkata, it transpires that naval authorities also destroyed records of the sinking of Ghazi.
The troubling finding has been thrown up by a trail of communications among the naval brass. Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi, regarded as a major threat to India’s plans to use its naval superiority, sank around midnight of December 3, 1971 off Visakhapatnam, killing all 92 on board in the initial days of the war between India and Pakistan. Indian Navy claims the submarine was destroyed by depth charges fired by its ship INS Rajput. Pakistani authorities say the submarine sank because of either an internal explosion or accidental blast of mines that the submarine itself was laying around Vizag harbour.
According to a set of naval communications made available to TOI by sources familiar with the Ghazi sinking, senior officers and those writing the official history of Navy exchanged a host of letters admitting to the fact that crucial documents of Ghazi were missing.
Immediately after Ghazi sank, Indian naval sailors had recovered several crucial documents and other items from the submarine, wreckage of which is still lying underwater off Vizag.
On June 22, 1998, Rear Admiral K Mohanrao, then chief of staff of Visakhapatnam-based Eastern Naval Command, told Vice Admiral G M Hiranandani, who was writing the official history of Navy, “All-out efforts were made to locate historical artifacts of Ghazi from various offices and organizations of this headquarters. However, regretfully, I was unable to lay my hands on many of the documents that I personally saw during my previous tenure.”
Mohanrao went on to tell Hiranandani, “We are still continuing to search for old files and as and when they are located, I will send appropriate documents for your project.” Mohanrao also refers to their inquiries with Commodore P S Bawa (retd), who worked with the Maritime Historical Society, to find out about the artifacts. Here also they drew a blank.
What Mohanrao’s letter does not disclose is the letter written by Bawa himself in 1980. On December 20, 1980, Bawa, then a commander with the Maritime Historical Society, said, “In Virbahu, to my horror I found that all Gazi papers and signals were destroyed this year. Nothing is now available there.” He was writing after a visit to Virbahu, the submarine centre at Vizag, where the documents, signals and other artifacts recovered from Ghazi were stored. His letter (MHS/23) was addressed to Vice Admiral M P Awati, the then chief of personnel at the naval headquarters.
Over the years, in the 1990s, as Vice Admiral Hiranandani sat down to write the official history of Navy, he made several efforts to get the Ghazi documents, records show. In one of his letters to the then chief of eastern naval command, Vice Admiral P S Das, he sought the track chart of the Ghazi, the official report of the diving operations on the Ghazi from December 1971 onwards and any other papers related to Ghazi. But none of it was available for the official historian of the Navy.
A retired Navy officer who saw action in 1971 said the destruction of the Ghazi papers and those of Army in Kolkata are all fitting into a larger trend, many of them suspected about Indian war history, of deliberate falsification in many instances. It is high time the real history of those past actions were revealed. “We have enough heroes,” he said. “In the fog of war, many myths and false heroes may have been created and many honest ones left unsung,” he admitted. TOI
Gazi is a flagship submarine of Pak.
Submarine sank with all 92 hands on board due to direct impact of depth charges
The PNS Ghazi was the first submarine to be operated by a navy in the Indian subcontinent and the first submarine casualty in those waters
The Hamoodur Rahman commission was constituted by Pakistan Government to investigate the military and political causes of the country’s defeat in the 1971 war never carried out any investigation into the incident, because Indian Eastern Naval Command being situated in Vishakapatnam and probably fearing the results of a formal investigation might highlight errors made by Pakistani Naval Command by sending an obsolute submarine in an almost impossible mission.
INS Rajput was sent from Vizag to track down Ghazi. ‘Transition to Triumph’, the book also noted that the time of dropping of the charges, the explosion which was heard by the people of Vizag and that of a clock recovered from Ghazi, matched.[17]
I was there on Dec 3rd 1971 in Vizag and I persoanlly know Gazi was sunk by Indian navy and due to some miltary resons it did not announced and did not claim
Do not belive falls reports and misguided remarks or out of context quotes , the truth is it sunk by india .
You can come and see, Following this both the United States and the Soviet Union offered to raise the submarine to the surface at their own expense. The Government of India, however, rejected these offers and allowed the submarine to sink further into the mud off the fairway buoy of Vishakapatham, where it still lies buried under the waters
Wiki is a not a good source–not even accepted by K-G in the US.
What does Bharat have to hide? Where is the paperwork for Ghazi?
any source you will not accept which has collection of majority of documents. just contradicting is not simple editor job, you will rest only to hear that india failed and pakis bravely killed themselves, like sucide bombers.
grow kid make this blog a worth and publish , hear others views.
i stand by i was there that night when gazi was sunk, it is a proud day write and investigate where pak has bad planning… i know you do not hear any advics or truth
vka, I have one question to you and expect reply and not just playing with words.have you ever learn,read the statement by ins rajput captain or crew statements,details about what and how they had done with GHAZI ?where is the record concerning sinking of GHAZI?as PN HANGOAR,sank ins khukri has complete record.Ghazi most probably hit her own mine.why government of india refuse russia and usa offer to raise GHAZI?LET I tell you,ins feared that on raising ,the nature of impact could get revealed that to what GHAZI get hit,mine or depth charger?