17 pirates surrendered before Indian Navy in middle of sea, 17 crew members were rescued

Indian Navy has achieved great success. Navy officials on Saturday forced 35 pirates aboard a merchant ship about 1,400 nautical miles off the Indian coast to surrender and rescued 17 crew members without harm.

The Indian Navy deployed its P-8I maritime patrol aircraft, frontline ships INS Kolkata and INS Subhadra, and high altitude HALE unmanned aircraft. Exclusive Marcos commandos were launched from C-17 aircraft for the operation.

Earlier, the Indian Navy had said that it has foiled the attempts of a group of Somali pirates to hijack ships in the high seas near the eastern coast of Somalia. He said the armed pirates had set out aboard a cargo ship named Ruen which had been hijacked about three months ago. Officials said that Indian Navy's marine commandos are carrying out a major operation to rescue the crew of merchant vessel MV Rouen from pirates.

Navy spokesperson said that in the last 40 hours, INS Kolkata took prompt action and surrounded all 35 pirates and forced them to surrender. Apart from this, 17 crew members were safely evacuated from the pirate ship without any injuries.

The navy said the ship MV Ruen was hijacked by Somali pirates on December 14 last year and was reported to have set out to carry out piracy activities on the high seas as a pirate ship.