India letting Iran warship dock after US sank another off Sri Lanka, officials say

Foreign minister says decision to allow Lavan to dock in Kochi was made on humanitarian grounds after US sank Iranian frigate Dena off Sri Lanka

NEW DELHI — India has allowed an Iranian warship to dock as a humanitarian gesture, Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Saturday, after the US sank another Iranian navy vessel off neighboring Sri Lanka.

The Lavan docked at India’s southern port of Kochi on Wednesday, the same day the US submarine struck Iranian navy frigate Dena, after an urgent request from Tehran, an Indian government source told Reuters.

US President Donald Trump has said destroying the Iranian navy is one aim of the war he and Israel launched against the Islamic Republic a week ago.

The Lavan — an amphibious landing vessel, according to the US Naval Institute’s online news site — and two other ships “were coming in for a fleet review and then they got, in a way, caught on the wrong side of the events,” Jaishankar told the annual Raisina Dialogue event.

“I think we really approached it from the point of view of humanity, of other than whatever the legal issues were,” he said. “I think we did the right thing.”

At least 87 people were killed in the US attack on the Dena in Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone, 19 nautical miles off the coast, outside its maritime boundaries.

This handout photograph taken on March 4, 2026 and released by the Sri Lankan President’s Office on March 6, 2026 shows Sri Lankan navy personnel evacuating rescued Iranian sailors from the IRIS Dena frigate after a US submarine attack off Sri Lanka’s southern coast in Galle. (SRI LANKAN PRESIDENT’S OFFICE / AFP)

India received the docking request for the Lavan on February 28, the day the Iran war started, the source said late on Friday, adding that the request “was urgent as the vessel had developed technical issues.”

Its 183 crew members have been accommodated at naval facilities in Kochi, said the source, who asked not to be identified citing confidentiality.

The Dena was on its way back from a naval exercise organized by India, according to the drill’s website and Sri Lankan officials.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath told a conference in New Delhi that Sri Lanka was caring for 32 sailors from the Dena under Colombo’s international treaty obligations.

Sri Lanka sent its navy to rescue survivors and recover bodies.

A US submarine sinks an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka in footage released on March 4, 2026. (US Department of War)

Asked if Colombo was under pressure from the US not to repatriate the Iranians, Herath did not answer directly.

“We have taken all the steps according to international laws,” Herath said.

Sri Lanka also provided safe haven to a second Iranian warship, the Bushehr, and evacuated its 219 crew a day after the Dena was torpedoed.

The ship was taken to Trincomalee on Sri Lanka’s northeast coast after reporting engine problems.

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said this week that Colombo would follow the Hague Convention, which requires a neutral state to hold combatants of a warring state until hostilities end.

A man watches Sri Lanka President Anura Kumara Dissanayake address the special media briefing on a mobile in Colombo on March 5, 2026. (Ishara S. KODIKARA / AFP)

A senior administration official said Colombo was in talks with the International Committee of the Red Cross to deal with the survivors of the torpedoed ship.

International humanitarian law applied to the survivors from the Dena, an official said, and the wounded could be repatriated at their request.

Iranian diplomats in Colombo said they have asked for the remains of 84 sailors killed in the US attack to be taken back to Iran.