Navy Chief Briefs Defence Minister Rajnath Singh On Fire Aboard INS Brahmaputra

On July 22, Navy Chief Admiral Dinesh K. Tripathi told Defense Minister Rajnath Singh that there was a fire on India’s frontline warship INS Brahmaputra at the Mumbai naval dockyard, which did a lot of damage to the frigate.

The Navy says that a junior sailor is missing after the fire on Sunday evening, and rescue teams are looking for him.

“Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi has apprised RM Shri @rajnathsingh of the fire breakout onboard Indian Naval Ship Brahmaputra and the damages caused by the incident,” Mr. Singh’s office told ‘X’.

It said that the Defense Minister prayed for the sailor’s safety and told the Navy chief to “take appropriate action.”

At the dockyard, the ship was getting fixed up.

“A fire had broken out onboard Indian Naval Ship Brahmaputra, a multi-role Frigate, on the evening of July 21 while she was undergoing refit at the naval dockyard,” the Navy reported.

It said that by this morning, the ship’s crew had put out the fire with help from firefighters from the dockyard and other ships in the harbor.

“Further, follow-on actions including sanitisation checks for assessment of residual risk of fire were carried out,” it added.

“Later that afternoon, the ship had severe listing to one side [port side],” “No matter how hard they tried, the ship could not be turned over,” it said.

Within her berth, the ship continued to list further, and it is now resting on one side, the Navy said in a statement.

It said that everyone on board had been found except for one junior sailor, for whom the search is still going on.

The Indian Navy has asked for an investigation into the matter, the statement said.