Military Drills Intensify in Arabian Sea

New Delhi: Following the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, both India and Pakistan have ramped up military drills in the Arabian Sea and along their maritime frontiers.

In the central sector, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has launched Exercise Aakraman, deploying its frontline fighter fleet — led by Rafale jets — for complex manoeuvres. The drills include ground-attack profiles and electronic-warfare training across diverse terrains, with aircraft operating from multiple bases, including those on India’s eastern flank.

In a show of force, Pakistan’s military authorities notified a live-fire naval exercise and a surface-to-surface missile test scheduled off the Karachi coast between April 24 to 25. The exercise area has been marked in the Arabian Sea for unrestricted testing.

Hours before Pakistan’s planned test, the Indian Navy conducted a successful medium-range surface-to-air missile (MRSAM) launch from the indigenously built destroyer INS Surat. Engaging a high-speed, sea-skimming target at a range of around 70 km, the test demonstrated “India’s growing prowess in indigenous warship design, development, and operations,” the Navy said.

Developed jointly with Israel, the MRSAM system defends against fighter aircraft, UAVs, helicopters, and cruise missiles—even in saturation scenarios — and features an Indian-built rocket motor and control system for terminal-phase manoeuvrability.

Open-source satellite imagery shows India’s 44,000-tonne aircraft carrier INS Vikrant departing its home port en route to the Arabian Sea, reinforcing naval presence.

Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi will visit Srinagar on Friday to review security operations in Jammu and Kashmir. Meanwhile, the Army has cleared limited flying operations for its fleet of HAL Advanced Light Helicopter (Dhruv) gunships — grounded since January after a crash — to support counter-terror missions in the Valley.