Naval collision tests India-Pakistan crisis controls after diplomatic protests

India summoned Pakistan’s charge d’affaires on September 16 to protest what New Delhi called unsafe conduct by Pakistani naval units that led to a collision with an Indian Navy vessel in international waters a day earlier. The encounter in the Arabian Sea has become a diplomatic test of the two countries’ long-standing crisis-management arrangements.²³

New Delhi said Pakistani units acted in an “unacceptable” manner and alleged the episode violated the 1991 agreement between India and Pakistan on advance notice of military exercises, manoeuvres and troop movements, including provisions meant to prevent dangerous proximity between naval vessels.²³ Pakistan rejected India’s account and lodged its own protest, saying the incident occurred during its SEASPARK-26 naval exercise in Pakistan’s Exclusive Economic Zone and accusing an Indian warship of provocative conduct.¹¹⁰

The competing accounts matter beyond the collision itself. For South Asia security analysts, the incident raises a sharper question: whether bilateral notification mechanisms designed to reduce escalation risk still work after last year’s India-Pakistan hostilities, or whether each side now uses them as another forum for legal and diplomatic accusation.⁵⁶

Disputed versions of the encounter

India’s External Affairs Ministry position, carried by Indian public broadcasters, was that Pakistani naval units engaged in unsafe conduct that caused a collision with an Indian Navy unit in international waters on September 15.²³ Indian reports said Pakistan’s charge d’affaires, Saad Warraich, was summoned in New Delhi and told the conduct was unprofessional and inconsistent with the 1991 confidence-building agreement.⁸

Pakistan’s Foreign Office presented the incident differently. Islamabad said an Indian naval vessel entered Pakistan’s Exclusive Economic Zone during SEASPARK-26 and alleged that INS Kolkata collided with PNS Hunain.¹¹⁰ Pakistan said it protested what it called an Indian naval provocation and accused India of violating the same 1991 agreement that New Delhi cited in its protest.¹

Reuters reported that both governments summoned diplomats after the collision, underscoring how quickly the encounter moved from a naval-safety issue to a political dispute.⁴ The Associated Press also reported that both sides issued diplomatic protests and placed the episode against the backdrop of last year’s India-Pakistan hostilities.⁵

The public record available on September 16 did not resolve the central factual dispute: whether the collision occurred in international waters, as India says, or inside Pakistan’s EEZ during an announced Pakistani exercise, as Islamabad says.¹²⁴ That disagreement is likely to shape how each side interprets the 1991 agreement and whether either navy believes the other deliberately tested agreed safety rules.

Why the 1991 agreement is central

The 1991 agreement was designed as a confidence-building measure to lower the risk that routine military activity would be mistaken for preparation for attack. It requires advance notice of certain military exercises and movements and includes naval safety provisions meant to keep vessels from operating dangerously close to each other.⁷⁹

The provision at the center of the current dispute is Article 10, which Indian public broadcaster DD India said New Delhi cited in alleging that Pakistan violated the agreement.³ Indian explainers described Article 10 as including a three-nautical-mile separation rule between naval ships and requirements aimed at avoiding hazardous manoeuvres during exercises or movements.⁷⁹

That rule matters because it turns a close approach at sea into a measurable compliance issue. If a vessel came within the agreed separation distance without adequate notice or safe navigation, the episode becomes more than a seamanship dispute. It becomes a potential breach of a bilateral risk-reduction framework.⁴⁷

India’s protest focused on that point. By saying the collision violated the 1991 agreement, New Delhi framed the episode as a failure by Pakistan to meet its obligations under an established military-notification regime, not simply as an accident at sea.²³⁸ Pakistan’s counterclaim uses the same agreement to argue the opposite: that India was the party operating improperly near a Pakistani exercise area.¹¹⁰

A post-hostilities stress test

The collision is the first direct military tension reported since last year’s four-day conflict between the two countries, Al Jazeera reported, making the diplomatic handling of the incident especially significant.⁶ In that context, even a limited naval collision can become a stress test for crisis-management channels. Each side must signal resolve to domestic and military audiences while avoiding steps that could expand the confrontation.

The maritime setting adds complexity. At sea, encounters unfold quickly, identification can be contested and the legal meaning of location can be disputed. An EEZ is not the same as territorial waters: coastal states have resource-related rights there, while other states retain navigation freedoms under international law. That distinction leaves room for each side to characterize the same movement differently, particularly during naval exercises.

The 1991 agreement was meant to narrow that danger by setting expectations before exercises and limiting risky proximity during military activity.⁷⁹ But the September 15 collision suggests notification rules may not be enough if commanders disagree over the status of the operating area, the intentions of the other navy or the practical meaning of safe distance during shadowing or surveillance.

For India, the diplomatic emphasis on Article 10 allows New Delhi to argue that an existing bilateral rulebook remains valid and that Pakistan failed to observe it.³⁸ For Pakistan, pointing to SEASPARK-26 and the EEZ allows Islamabad to argue that India intruded into a sensitive exercise environment and created the hazard.¹¹⁰

Risk management, not just blame

The immediate diplomatic exchange shows that both capitals still use formal protest channels when military incidents occur. That is stabilizing: summoning diplomats, issuing official statements and invoking written agreements are all preferable to operational retaliation or ambiguous military signaling.

But the dispute also shows the limits of existing mechanisms. If both sides cite the same agreement while reaching opposite conclusions about who violated it, the pact’s value depends on whether officials can use follow-on channels to clarify facts, review naval conduct and prevent a recurrence.

For now, neither side has publicly indicated a joint inquiry or a mutually accepted reconstruction of the encounter. Without one, the collision may harden into another contested episode in the India-Pakistan security relationship, with each navy likely to treat future close approaches with greater suspicion.

That is why the September 15 collision matters. It was a technical naval incident, but the diplomatic reaction has made it a test of whether India and Pakistan’s legacy confidence-building measures still reduce escalation risk in a more brittle post-hostilities environment — or whether those mechanisms now mainly provide language for competing protests after the risk has already materialized.