The Pakistan Navy has unveiled plans to establish a persistent submarine presence in the strategically critical Bay of Bengal, marking its first major underwater deployment to the region since the catastrophic losses of the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War. The landmark announcement was made by Commodore Omer Farooq, mission commander of the task group escorting Islamabad’s newly acquired, Chinese-built attack submarine, PNS Hangor. Speaking during a high-profile diplomatic stopover in Colombo, Sri Lanka—just 130 nautical miles from Indian territorial waters—Commodore Farooq declared the new vessel a definitive “game-changer,” confirming that the upcoming induction of eight advanced Hangor-class submarines will grant Pakistan the necessary endurance to maintain a continuous, forward-deployed footprint across India’s eastern seaboard.
Derived from China’s cutting-edge Type 039B Yuan-class design, the multi-billion dollar Hangor-class fleet features advanced Stirling Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP) technology. This system allows the conventional non-nuclear vessels to remain completely submerged for nearly three weeks without surfacing, vastly compounding their stealth profile and complicating anti-submarine tracking efforts in deeper oceanic channels. Islamabad’s calculated return to the Bay of Bengal carries profound historical and symbolic weight; it was in these exact waters in December 1971 that Pakistan’s long-range submarine, PNS Ghazi, sank during the war that led to the liberation of Bangladesh, effectively wiping out Pakistan’s maritime presence in the region for over half a century. While the strategic environment remains heavily dominated by the Indian Navy, analysts view this forward projection—complemented by a recent, rapid thawing of diplomatic and military ties between Pakistan and Bangladesh—as a highly calculated anti-access and area-denial move. Backed by extensive Chinese naval engineering, the deployment signals a major shift that directly challenges India’s long-standing strategic depth in the eastern Indian Ocean.