New Delhi: Apart from mounting a rescue mission for the ill-fated Iranian frigate IRIS Dena – even as India kept absolutely silent for over a day – Sri Lanka's Navy has managed to bring in 208 crew onboard a second Iranian Navy ship, IRIS Bushehr, near Lankan territorial waters. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake himself announced that the crew was being brought ashore to Colombo at present.

Meanwhile, the Indian Navy issued a press release more than a day (36 hours) after the attack on IRIS Dena, which had been sailing home after participating in India’s “premier multilateral maritime exercise” in Vishakhapatnam, called MILAN 2026.

The press release says:

A distress call from IRIS Dena was received at the MRCC Colombo in the early hours of 04 March 26 as reported by the Sri Lankan Navy. The ship was operating 20 NM West of Galle in the SAR region under Sri Lankan responsibility. On receipt of the information, the Indian Navy promptly launched its SAR efforts commencing with a long-range maritime patrol aircraft at 1000 hr on 04 March 26 to augment the search efforts led by Sri Lanka. Another aircraft with air droppable life rafts was also kept standby for immediate deployment. INS Tarangini which was operating in vicinity was deployed for aiding the rescue efforts and arrived in search area by 1600 hr on 04 March 26. By this time SAR had been undertaken by Sri Lankan Navy and other agencies. INS Ikshak has also sailed from Kochi to augment the search efforts and continues to remain in the area to search for missing personnel as a humanitarian measure for ship wrecked personnel. Coordination with the Sri Lankan side on Search and Rescue efforts is ongoing.

The press release has raised questions and eyebrows. The attack on the Iranian naval vessel, which the US has admitted to and boasted about, is being seen as a very serious incident with grave escalatory potential in the ongoing West Asian war. This was the first attack by a US submarine in open seas in the ongoing conflict triggered by US-Israel attacking Iran, not just expanding the warzone but bringing it close to India – and far removed from West Asia.

From the sequence of events narrated by the navies of both countries and Sri Lankan ministers and officials, it is clear that Sri Lanka jumped to the rescue of the sailors aboard the sinking Iranian vessel. Meanwhile, India remained silent on the issue – and that has been noted.

Though the Indian Navy's press release has broken India's silence, it has also raised many questions:

The IRIS Dena sent a distress signal at 5:08 am local time. The Indian Navy confirmed it received it. The response was launched at 10 am IST, and it involved sending a patrol aircraft and keeping an aircraft with droppable life rafts on “standby for immediate deployment”.

Questions

• Why the delay in providing a response to the struggling ship? How long would it have taken for INS Tarangini to reach IRIS Dena from where it was? All we know is that it reached at 4 pm, as per the Navy's press release, by when everything was over.
• There is no mention of the fact that the torpedoed ship was returning from an Indian fleet review, or that it was targeted by a US submarine. IRIS Dena was hit close to Indian shores and without intimating New Delhi. None of these details feature in the release.
• There is not a word of condolence for the at least 87 lives lost in the attack, in the press release. Or a mention of who attacked the ship, which led it to sink.
• If India had tried to help IRIS Dena, at whatever time and howsoever late, why did Sri Lanka not mention the help offered?
• Further, questions have been raised about why a standby aircraft with lifeboats was not sent in the first place. Also, did the initial patrol craft have rafts?

Indian Navy veteran, former Flag Officer, Naval Aviation, Sudhir Pillai, has examined in detail how countries close to the Iranian ship that was attacked by the US fared on the scale of responsibility and how they should have handled the situation, even if the incident did not take place in their territorial waters.

He maintains that there is no “law of the sea” that allows warships to be attacked on the high seas. “Under the law of the sea, warships occupy a special position. On the high seas, they enjoy complete immunity from the jurisdiction of other states.” If hit and sunk, then the UN Charter says it can only be “as an act of self‑defence under Article 51, or as part of an ongoing international armed conflict in which the ships are enemy military objectives.”

He concludes that the use of force against a foreign warship on the high seas is “presumptively unlawful unless clearly justified as self‑defence or as part of an armed conflict”.

Any claim of “self‑defence” must “identify the armed attack, show why it is attributable to Iran, and explain why this particular target and timing were necessary and proportionate.”

In conclusion, he says, “The farther you move from repelling an ongoing attack towards signalling, punishment or general deterrence, the weaker the legal position becomes.”

This is what Iran has also been stressing – that the torpedoed IRIS Dena was unarmed. The foreign minister of Iran Aragchi has told Tehran Times newspaper that it was carrying officers-in-training.

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