New Delhi, Nov. 20: The Indian Navy has been given the nod to take offensive action against suspected pirates inside Somalia’s territorial waters, two days after it claimed that one of its warships had fired at and sunk a vessel of sea bandits.

Alongside this international “approval”, the navy is also sending one of its largest and most powerful destroyers to the Somali coast to operate with the INS Tabar stealth frigate. The Delhi-class destroyer is expected to be in Somali waters in four days.

The decision was conveyed to the navy at a meeting convened by defence minister A.K. Antony. “We have been given an informal international mandate,” a senior naval source told The Telegraph.

He would not detail the mechanism through which the mandate has been conveyed to the navy but cited the United Nations Security Council Resolution, 1838.

The resolution asks nations with the military capability to “actively fight piracy” on the high seas off Somalia. It says countries must use naval vessels and military aircraft, “the necessary means to repress acts of piracy, in a manner consistent with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”.

Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta has also suggested that naval aircraft in addition to helicopters on board the Tabar and the Delhi-class destroyer be used for surveillance.

“We are looking at how most efficiently to augment our efforts,” a senior naval officer said. “It requires a phenomenal effort to combat piracy in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman. No single country can do it.”

The ministry of shipping and merchant shipping bodies have inquired with the defence ministry if the navy could deploy up to four warships. But that is not easy.

At the navy headquarters in Delhi, there was a sense of relief after what officials said were statements of encouragement from the global maritime community, the US and the International Maritime Organisation.

The navy had earlier been wary of the diplomatic fallout of exhibiting its sea power beyond Indian waters.

India has already sought deployment of warships on the high seas by various countries, particularly those in the Gulf, jointly under the UN flag.

The proposal was being considered, said N. Ravi, secretary, east, in the foreign ministry.