Pakistan rattles India with new Chinese-built stealth submarine

The last time Pakistan’s navy operated a submarine in the Bay of Bengal, India sank it. That was 1971. Fifty-five years on, Islamabad is signalling its intent to go back.

The vessel delivering that message, PNS Hangor, arrived in Karachi on June 11, the first of a class of eight attack submarines – four built in China, with the remainder to be constructed in Pakistan to develop its shipbuilding capacity.

PNS Hangor is named after an earlier Daphne-class submarine that sank the Indian frigate INS Khukri in the Arabian Sea in December 1971, a rare moment of Pakistani naval success in an otherwise one-sided conflict.

Commodore Omer Farooq, who acted as escort commander for the new vessel’s high-profile transit voyage from China, declared it a “game changer” capable of operating not just in Pakistan’s home waters, but eastwards, deep into what India considers its own maritime backyard.

Unsurprisingly, the announcement has raised more than just eyebrows in New Delhi.

Pakistan has not maintained a meaningful naval presence east of India since its forces were routed there more than half a century ago.