‘Concern’ Eclipses Condemnation in Delhi as US Hits Third Ship Carrying Indians; Death Toll Climbs in Manipur's Hills; NIA Wants to Put Two More Elgar Defendants Back in Jail
For subscribers: A challenging time confronts the INDIA bloc
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Snapshot of the day
June 11, 2026
Anirudh S.K.
“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.” – Ian Fleming in the James Bond novel Goldfinger (h/t Rezaul Hasan Laskar).
‘Concern’ again eclipsed condemnation in India’s official messaging on Thursday even as the US military struck a third ship carrying Indian sailors off Oman this week alone – this time it hit the MT Jalveer oil tanker early today saying it was transporting Iranian oil. The vessel’s 20 Indian crew had to be rescued by Omani authorities and the Modi government said today the continuous attacks are ‘deeply concerning’ and that it ‘hopes and expects’ they will come to an end.
Three other Indian seafarers however were not so lucky: the men aboard the MT Settebello who went missing after the US Navy hit it with a missile yesterday – deck cadet Aditya Sharma, engine fitter Shivanand Chaurasiya and chief engineer Patnala Suresh – were confirmed killed, in perhaps the first time in independent India’s history that the American military has slain Indian civilians. New Delhi yesterday summoned the US charge d’affaires to lodge a “strong protest” against the Settebello attack but so far no cabinet minister has come out and directly condemned it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains tongue-tied during another diplomatic confrontation with Washington (but not in general: he has thanked several world leaders who congratulated him on his asterisk-appended record tenure throughout the day, including the commander-in-chief of the US Navy, aka his “dear friend” US President Donald Trump).
During their regular inter-ministerial briefing on the conflict today Modi government officials, when asked if any of these vessels were sanctioned, seemed to emphasise the fact that two of the vessels are sanctioned by the US treasury and one of them is ‘non-compliant’. Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal has pointed out that such emphasis indirectly justifies the American actions, which at any rate are illegal. “Our concern is that Indian seamen have been killed and no regret has been expressed by CENTCOM,” he writes.
Now IOS Marine FZE, the Dubai-based firm that manages the Settebello, has challenged the US military’s account of what happened on Wednesday, saying that no communication had been established between the vessel and the American navy before the latter attacked, and that the tanker had been stationary for around ten days at the time. It has demanded an independent international investigation into the US strike.
These attacks have thrown a stark spotlight on a hard question: just how safe are India’s sailors in West Asia? And when even sections of the media that typically act as the Modi government’s most reliable echo chamber struggle to justify its positioning, it only points to how damning it is.
The six Naga men who remained missing amid Manipur’s Kuki-Naga hostage crisis
