Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday expressed anguish over the loss of Navy's frontline submarine INS Sindhurakshak in an accident in Mumbai in which 18 soldiers are feared to have lost their lives.
"We are deeply pained that we lost the submarine, INS Sindurakshak in an accident on Wednesday. Eighteen brave sailors are feared to have lost their lives," the Prime Minister said in his speech on the 67th Independence Day.
"The accident is all the more painful because the Navy had recently achieved two major successes in the form of its first nuclear submarine, INS Arihant and the aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant," he said.
In one of the worst disasters to have struck the Navy, a series of explosions rocked its submarine INS Sindhurakshak at the dockyard in Mumbai on Tuesday night, sinking it partially in the shallow sea, in which 18 personnel including three officers are feared killed.
The diesel-electric submarine was commissioned into the Indian Navy 1997 at a cost of around Rs 400 crore and had recently gone through an over Rs 450-crore extensive upgrade in Russia. A board of inquiry has been constituted by the Navy to probe the reasons behind the accident and it is expected to submit its report within four weeks.
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