Indian, Sri Lankan Navies To Conduct Joint Exercise on Maritime Security

Indian Navy Ships Magar and Shardul participated in a Maritime Partnership Exercise with Sri Lankan Navy ships Samudura (OPV) and Nandimithra (Fast Missile Vessel) off Colombo.

This comes after the Indian Navy Ships departure on completion of a three-day visit to Sri Lanka as part of Overseas Deployment of the First Training Squadron of the Indian Navy.

A planning conference for the exercise was conducted onboard INS Shardul on 26 October in Colombo harbour, which was attended by Command teams of all participating units. Ships of the First Training Squadron are on a four-day visit to Sri Lanka from 24 - 28 Oct 21. The exercise was conducted at 12 Nm off the Colombo harbour.

The ships undertook various multi-ship evolutions which included PUBEX (Publication exercise), Manoeuvrex and Steam Past. In addition, Chetak helicopter (embarked on Shardul) also undertook VERTREP (Vertical Replenishment) on the decks of both Sri Lankan ships.