When India Ablaze Karachi

No one in Karachi can forget the dark night of December 3rd, 1971 when two Indian naval warships have set Karachi Ablaze. Known as Operation Trident in India and celebrated as a Navy Day across that country till now, when two Indian Naval warships INS Talwar and Trishul have attacked Karachi.

Hostile Naval Ships fired four SS-N-2B Styx missiles on Pakistan's largest oil depot at Kemari with more than 50 percent of the total fuel requirement of the Karachi zone was blown up. The result was a crippling economic blow to Pakistan and $3 billion worth of damage, most of the oil reserves and ammunition were lost, warehouses and workshops destroyed and the Karachi port was left burning with flames seen from 60 miles away.

Another missile hit and sank a Panamian fuel tanker the Gulf Star. The third and fourth missiles hit the Pakistani Navy fleet tanker PNS Dacca and the British ship SS Harmattan. Shipping traffic to and from Karachi was ceased and Pakistan naval ships were either destroyed or forced to remain in port due to sea blockade.

More than 1790 people lost their lives and 200 were injured.

Prior to the attack in 1965, Pakistan's Field Marshal General Ayub Khan has moved the Pakistani capital away from Karachi to Islamabad because of Karachi's vulnerability to sea attacks by India and has setup a Strategic Indian oceanology study institute in the city.

PS: India's RAW is also behind Karachi's first ever bomb attack at Bohri Bazar which killed dozens of innocent lives.