In late 1971 a Pakistani submarine sailed three thousand miles to sink India’s only aircraft carrier. It went to the bottom off Visakhapatnam with ninety-three men aboard. Both navies still tell the story differently
One of the signals sent from Visakhapatnam in the last days of November 1971 was a short, unclassified telegram. It read as a private message from a sailor, asking after his mother, who was seriously ill.
The message was a fake. So were the unusually large orders of fresh vegetables and meat placed in the port, and a great deal of the radio traffic humming out of the harbour.
All of it was there to say one thing: INS Vikrant, India’s only aircraft carrier, is here at Visakhapatnam.
The Vikrant was not there. It was far away, near the Andaman Islands.
The message was a fake. So were the vegetable orders, and much of the radio traffic.
The hunter
The deception, run by Vice Admiral N. Krishnan of the Eastern Naval Command, was aimed at one vessel.
PNS Ghazi was Pakistan’s only long-range submarine: an American boat of the Second World War, launched in 1944 as USS Diablo and transferred to Pakistan in the 1960s. She was old, and had been giving trouble with equipment failures. She was also the only thing Pakistan had that could reach the Bay of Bengal.
In mid-November she left Karachi and sailed roughly three thousand miles around the Indian peninsula, under the command of Commander Zafar Muhammad Khan, who was taking a submarine to war for the first time. Aboard were ninety-three men.
Her orders were twofold: find and sink the Vikrant, and lay a minefield across the approaches to Visakhapatnam.
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The night
In the first days of December, Ghazi worked off Visakhapatnam. She went out into deeper water looking for the carrier, found nothing, and came back towards the harbour mouth to go on laying mines.
On the night of 3 December, the ageing destroyer INS Rajput left Visakhapatnam harbour. Ships leaving a harbour in wartime go out through a swept channel and, on clearing it, drop depth charges as a routine precaution against a submarine lying in wait.
Shortly after midnight, there was an explosion, heard on shore. The Indian submarine INS Karanj, somewhere out in the Bay, recorded muffled sounds.
In the morning, wreckage and oil came up off the coast. Ghazi was gone, with everyone aboard.
In the morning, wreckage and oil came up off the coast. Ghazi was gone, with everyone aboard.
Two versions
What killed her has been argued about ever since, and the two navies have never agreed.
The Indian account is that the Rajput’s depth charges found the submarine and sank her. That version has been taught, filmed and repeated in India for fifty years.
The Pakistani account is that Ghazi was destroyed by an internal explosion while laying mines: that a mine, or hydrogen from her batteries, went up inside the boat.
There is a third possibility, raised by Indian writers too: that Ghazi, working in the dark with the shore lights blacked out, misjudged her position and ran into her own minefield, minutes before the Rajput dropped its charges.
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The wreck
Ghazi lies in shallow water off Visakhapatnam, a short distance from the breakwaters, in about forty-five metres. Indian divers examined the wreck, most thoroughly in 2003.
What they found complicates the story rather than settling it. The damage to the forward hull was consistent with an explosion inside the submarine, pushing outward rather than crushing inward. That points away from a depth charge. It does not rule out one, because a depth charge close enough could conceivably have set off something inside the boat.
Vice Admiral G.M. Hiranandani, writing the Indian Navy’s own official history, put it as fairly as anyone has. The truth about the Ghazi, he wrote, “lies somewhere between the Indian and Pakistani versions”, and nobody knows exactly where.
Ninety-three
What is not in dispute is the consequence. With Ghazi gone, the Bay of Bengal was open. The Vikrant’s aircraft struck East Pakistan’s ports through the days that followed, and on 16 December Pakistani forces in the east surrendered.
Also not in dispute is the cost. Ninety-three men died in the dark inside a twenty-seven-year-old submarine, a long way from home, hunting a ship that was not there.
They were drawn to that spot by a story about vegetables and radio chatter and a young sailor’s sick mother. The story worked. The rest of it, half a century later, is still an argument between two navies, sitting in forty-five metres of water off Visakhapatnam.
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If you think you have remembered everything about this topic take this QUIZ
Results
#1. What was the original name of the PNS Ghazi before it was leased to Pakistan?
#2. What was the primary mission of the PNS Ghazi during the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War?
#3. To which location did the Indian Navy secretly move the INS Vikrant to keep it safe?
#4. Which Indian Navy ship was used to deceive the Ghazi by pretending to be the INS Vikrant?
#5. How did the Indian Navy simulate the presence of the INS Vikrant at Visakhapatnam to fool Pakistani intelligence?
#6. On what date did the massive underwater explosion occur that destroyed the PNS Ghazi?
#7. According to the Pakistani claim, what was the cause of the Ghazi’s sinking?
#8. How many crew members were lost when the PNS Ghazi sank?
What was the main mission of the PNS Ghazi?
Its primary mission was to secretly navigate to the eastern coast of India and sink the Indian aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, to cripple India’s naval air power.
How did the Indian Navy trick the submarine?
The Indian Navy secretly moved the INS Vikrant to the Andaman Islands and used the INS Rajput to broadcast fake radio signals, tricking the Ghazi into thinking the carrier was still in Visakhapatnam.
Did India or Pakistan recover the submarine?
No, the submarine was completely destroyed and broke apart. Indian divers went down to inspect the wreckage and recover logbooks, but the heavy steel hull was left at the bottom of the sea as a war grave.
Why does Pakistan claim it was an accident?
Pakistan claims the internal explosion blew outward, suggesting that a tragic accident while arming their own mines caused the blast, rather than a direct hit from an Indian depth charge.
Where is the wreckage located today?
The wreckage of the PNS Ghazi still rests at the bottom of the Bay of Bengal, just a few nautical miles off the coast of Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.
Sources & References
Vice Admiral G. M. Hiranandani, Transition to Triumph: History of the Indian Navy, 1965–1975 — the Indian Navy’s official account, including its assessment of the competing explanations for Ghazi’s loss.
Deccan Chronicle, “Sunk Pakistani submarine Ghazi is an enigma” (2015) — the signal traffic deception, the Vikrant’s actual position off Port Blair, and the routine depth-charging by INS Rajput on leaving harbour.
Yo! Vizag, “8 interesting facts about the sinking of PNS Ghazi” (3 May 2025) — Vice Admiral Krishnan’s deception plan, the fake telegram and food orders, and the divers’ finding that the forward hull had blown outward.
Historic Mysteries, “Sudden silence: what happened to the Pakistani submarine Ghazi?” (2022) — the 2003 dive, the competing Indian and Pakistani conclusions, and the casualty figures.
