KARACHI: The various drills and demonstrations on the sea day of Sea Guard-25 showed the readiness and smooth interoperability and coordination of the Pakistan Navy and the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) in responding to threats in the sea.

PN personnel in gray camouflage and PMSA personnel in their blue camouflage uniforms were prepared for all challenges on board PMSS Kashmir on Tuesday. In the air, there was PMSA 90 Squadron Defender surveillance aircraft making sure that the waters were safe.

Then when the Joint Maritime Information Coordination Centre (JMICC) received a distress message about six stranded foreign nationals whose boat was sinking, everyone was on high alert for a search and rescue operation. The navy and PMSA personnel, the aircraft and boats, were all on the lookout for the men.

Meanwhile, the men from the sinking boat got into a life raft, which was also giving off an orange smoke signal to be noticed. And it was noticed by the Defender aircraft, which flew to the raft and circled over them before tipping a wing to indicate to the men that it had spotted them and that help was on its way. Thereafter, the men were rescued by boats sent for them to the spot indicated by the aircraft.

But there were only five survivors in the life raft. The sixth one was missing. As the five were being provided medical assistance, search was underway for the sixth individual. He was eventually spotted, floating in the water by the PN Sea King helicopter, which lifted him to safety before returning with him to base where he received swift medical aid to successfully resuscitate him.

All was well. The sea was calm again, though not for long as JMICC received information about a suspicious fishing dhow. Two green Navy boats reached the dhow and started circling it like sharks. Trapped, the dhow stopped. A search operation on board the vessel resulted in finding narcotics. The smugglers were apprehended.

This was just a small trailer of the maritime operations undertaken to make our waters safe. More work by the JMICC includes monitoring marine pollution, response coordination for environmental incidents, data gathering of marine biodiversity, facilitating legal fishing practices, promoting marine tourism, supporting shipping and cargo movement, and much more to safeguard national interests within the maritime domain.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2025