India's Largest Shipyard Receives Email Threatening to Blow Up Navy Installations

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Kerala state police on Monday revealed that they'd received an official complaint from Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) in connection with an anonymous email threatening to bomb the INS Vikrant, the aircraft carrier under construction in Kochi.

"The CSL received an anonymous email on 25 August 2021," Manoj K, a chief police officer at Ernakulum Police station, confirmed to Sputnik. CSL is India's largest shipbuilding and maintenance facility in India.

Police are probing the terrorism angle, he said.

Some of Indian media also reported that "the officers of the shipyard received the hoax emails." However, the police officer did not confirm the same to Sputnik only said, "Probe is underway."

Earlier in July, an Afghan citizen, Eid Gul, was arrested for allegedly working at the Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) using forged documents; since then, the area has remained is under high-security cover. Later the case was handed over to the National Investigative Agency (NIA).

In 2019, two employees engaged in painting work at the ship were also arrested for stealing certain commercially off-the-shelf hardware items from multi-function consoles of the Integrated Platform Management System (IPMS) onboard the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC). The hardware was fully recovered.

The INS Vikrant, built at the Cochin Shipyard at a cost of over $3.5 billion, is a 262 meter-long ship and has a displacement of 40,000 tonnes. This allows the warship to carry a total of 30 aircraft, including fighters and helicopters.

India at present has only one aircraft carrier, the Russian-made INS Vikramaditya.