With a Navy warship sinking a pirate vessel in the Gulf of Aden, India Wednesday said it wanted a larger arrangement among naval powers, preferably under the UN flag, to tackle the increasing threat from sea pirates.
"We are (already) co-ordinating with them (other navies) to some extent so that we do not waste our efforts. But the eventual line, as the Government of India has rightly stated, is that we need to operate under the UN flag so that we can work in greater concert with each other," Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta said here.
Mehta said naval powers had already placed their ships in the pirate-infested areas to protect the sea lines of communication and there was a reasonable amount of coordination among them.
"That kind of a thing (international cooperation) is already happening. But as I did mention, the international mandate for naval men of war is that if you see this kind of an act (pirate attack) happening in international waters, take whatever measures you can to prevent that from happening," the Navy chief told TV channels.
He said there were a large number of warships at present in the Gulf of Aden region, pointing out that there were several nations with their own group of warships, such as the EU Group and the Task Force 150, for coordinating anti-piracy efforts.
Now, Indian warships too have reached there and so did warships from some other countries, who have gone there for protecting their maritime assets, he said.
Asked if the operation against the pirates was dangerous, though the brigands seemed to be small-time players, Mehta said the manner in which the pirates operated in the Gulf of Aden was innovative.
"They have got themselves a mother ship, which looks after the other small boats, which tow along. They have been doing it with small boats at a great distance from the land, which was surprising to everyone," he said.
Explaining the pirates' modus operandi, Mehta said they took the smaller boats along with them in tow and let these boats get closer to a target and surround it from four or five sides by using more than two or three boats and therefore create panic on board merchant vessels.