INDIA is investigating damage caused to French Scorpene submarines that are being built in the country, the defense ministry said yesterday, after the leak of documents relating to the vessel’s combat capabilities.
The leak, which was first reported in The Australian newspaper, contains more than 22,000 pages outlining the secret capabilities of six submarines that French builder DCNS has designed for the Indian Navy.
“I understand there has been a case of hacking,” Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar told reporters. “We will find out what has happened.”
The submarines are being built at a state-run shipyard in Mumbai and the first one was expected to join service by the end of the year, the first step in the navy’s effort to rebuild its dwindling fleet.
The massive leak has also raised doubts about the security of DCNS’s submarine project in Australia where it won a A$50 billion (US$38.06 billion) contract to build the next generation of submarines.
DCNS beat out Germany’s Thyssen Krupp AG and a Japanese-Government-backed bid by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, in a blow to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to develop defense export capabilities as part of a more muscular security agenda.
The leaked documents cover the Scorpene-class model and do not contain any details of the vessel currently being designed for the Australian fleet.
The breadth of detail in the documents creates a major strategic problem for India, Malaysia and Chile, all of which operate the same submarine, an Australian political source with decades of experience in the global arms industry said.
The Indian Defense Ministry said it was probing the impact of the leak on the submarine program, which it said had occurred from abroad. (SD-Agencies)
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