Navy hands over decommissioned ship Khukri to Diu admin, to be turned into museum

Mumbai: Decommissioned warship `Khukri’ has been handed over to the Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (DNHDD) administration and would be converted into a museum, the Indian Navy said on Friday.

In a ceremony at the INS Khukri Memorial at Diu two days ago, Rear Admiral Ajay Vinay Bhave, Flag Officer Doctrine and Concepts, handed over the corvette to Praful Patel, administrator of the Union Territory of DNHDD and Lakshadweep, a navy release said.

The Diu administration is planning to convert the Khukri, the first indigenously built missile corvette of the navy, into a public museum.

The museum will be set up at the existing Khukri Memorial where the scaled-down version of the first INS Khukri (F149), a Blackwood class anti-submarine frigate, is also stationed.

INS Khukri, the lead ship of the Indian Navy’s Khukri class corvettes and an indigenous surface-to-surface missile-fitted vessel, had the distinction of being part of both the Western and Eastern Fleets.

“A ship never dies, it is said. She is reborn in a new avatar. In fact, the decommissioned vessel is the second ship of the Navy to carry the name INS Khukri, the first having been lost during the 1971 Indo-Pak War off the coast of Diu.

“The valiant crew of that ship, led by late Captain Mahendra Nath Mulla, has been immortalized in the Khukri Memorial at Diu,” the navy statement said.

Built by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, the ship was commissioned on August 23, 1989, in Mumbai by Krishna Chandra Pant, then Defence Minister, and Sudha Mulla, wife of late Capt Mahendra Nath Mulla.

The ship commenced her last journey under tow by navy ships from Visakhapatnam and arrived at Diu on January 14.