Indian Naval ships enter Malaysia for deployment to Indian Ocean, South China Sea

NEW DELHI: The ships of Indian Navy's Eastern Fleet under the command of Rear Admiral Ajendra Bahadur Singh, VSM, Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet, on Wednesday arrived at Kuantan, Malaysia on a four day visit as part of an operational deployment to South Indian Ocean and South China Sea.

India-Malaysia naval cooperation has largely been in the form of training interactions and exchange of goodwill visits by IN and RMN ships.

India signed a Memorandum of Understanding on defence cooperation with Malaysia in February 1993. Consequently, the Malaysia-India Defence Cooperation Committee (MIDCOM) was set-up to examine various aspects of defence cooperation.

Issues such as training, combined exercises, exchange of personnel etc, are discussed during the MIDCOM meetings. This visit is aimed at strengthening bilateral ties and enhancing inter-operability between navies of the two friendly nations.

During the stay in harbour, various activities such as official calls, reception on board, ship open to visitors, guided tours for Indian naval personnel and professional interaction between personnel of both the navies, are planned.

On departure, the ship will exercise with Royal Malaysian Naval ships for achieving interoperability in communication and Search and Rescue procedures. In pursuit of India's 'Look East' and 'Act East' policy, the ships had visited Singapore, Jakarta (Indonesia), Freemantle (Australia).

The Indian warships taking part in this deployment are INS Ranvir, a guided missile destroyer, commanded by Captain Jaswinder Singh, INS Satpura, indigenously built guided missile stealth frigate, commanded by Captain Hari Krishnan, INS Shakti, a sophisticated Fleet tanker and support ship, commanded by Capt Vikram Menon and INS Kamorta, the latest and indigenous Anti Submarine Warfare corvette, commanded by Commander Manoj Kumar Jha.

Earlier during their deployment, these warships participated in IMDEX-15 at Singapore and the Indo-Singapore bilateral naval exercise SIMBEX.