Indian Navy orders probe into assault on senior officer

The Indian Navy has ordered a high-level probe into an incident of insubordination and assault by some young sailors on a senior officer on board its survey ship INS Sandhayak off the coast of the eastern state of Odisha.

Defense sources said Friday that the incident took place when some young sailors were pulled up after they failed to carry out orders of the ship's executive officer.

When the erring sailors were asked to stand in attention, one of them refused that the officer physically make him stand properly, which in turn prompted the sailor to slap the officer, with his colleagues soon joining him, the sources said.

The Indian Navy has said that four sailors were later removed from the ship in a chopper that was called in following the incident.

"The ship has reported an incident of insubordination involving young sailors... Indian armed forces are known for maintaining a very high standard of discipline... There is no scope for tolerance for such incidents," the Navy has said in a statement.

INS Sandhayak, under the Eastern Naval Command, is used by the Indian Navy to carry out shallow coastal and deep oceanic survey and collect oceanographic and geophysical data.

Source: Xinhua