Navy Officer Dies in Indian Ship Accident

An Indian naval officer was killed and "some" dock workers were injured Friday in a gas leak aboard a yet-to-be commissioned naval ship, the defense ministry said.

The accident was the 11th involving a naval vessel in the past 11 months, the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party said.

"Commander Kuntal Wadhwa has died," Commander Rahul Sinha, chief defense ministry spokesman, told AFP.

Indian media reports said that the officer died after inhaling large amounts of toxic gas.

A statement by the defense ministry said "some" dock workers were injured but did not say how many or disclose the nature of the injuries.

The accident occurred aboard the ship called Yard 701 by its builders, the Mazagaon Dock Ltd, in Mumbai, headquarters of India's Western Naval Command.

The ship was undergoing trials at the Mumbai Port Trust when its carbon dioxide unit developed a problem, causing the gas leakage and injuries, the defense ministry said in the statement.

"It is a destroyer with stealth features and we were hoping to hand it over to the navy in a month's time," Parvez Panthanky, a spokesman for the Mazagaon Dock, told reporters.

The ship is set to be the first in a new class of destroyers.

The naval spokesman said the accident would cause a delay in commissioning of the ship.

More details about the cause of the accident would only be available after talking to the shipbuilders, the spokesman said.

The Indian Navy has been without a chief since Admiral D.K. Joshi resigned last month after a fire on one of the country's submarines, the INS Sindhuratna, killed two officers.

Indian Navy ships have been hit by a series of accidents in the past few months with the worst involving the INS Sindurakshak, a submarine which burst into flames in Mumbai harbour last August, killing 18 sailors and sinking the vessel.

The latest accident comes just days after the scandal-tainted Congress-led coalition government called national elections.

The opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), tipped to win the elections, demanded the resignation of Defense Minister A.K. Antony, blaming him for the incident and "neglect of the navy".

The BJP asked India's president, as commander in chief of the armed forces, to order an investigation into the "mess" involving the navy.

"This is the 11th serious accident in past 11 months. This is the result of complete neglect of the navy" by the government, BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar told reporters.

Sameer Patil, Associate National Security Fellow at Indian think-tank Gateway House said the latest accident aboard the INS Kolkata destroyer "will create further doubts about India's naval capability, especially following the INS Sindhuratna mishap which occurred just two weeks ago".

"The loss of another trained officer has a bearing on our operational preparedness, particularly when the Navy is already short of trained personnel," he said.

The incident would raise questions about the quality of shipbuilding at government-owned shipyards, at a time when India is placing emphasis on "cutting dependency on foreign hardware and promoting indigenous ship-building", Patil said.