Indian Navy ships Cheetah, Guldar, and Kumbhir were decommissioned in a traditional ceremony at Port Blair on Friday after rendering four decades of glorious service to the nation.
According to the Defence Ministry statement, the event was unique as three warships of the same class were decommissioned simultaneously on a single day.
Built at Gdynia Shipyard, Poland, as Polnocny-class landing ships, Cheetah, Guldar and Kumbhir were commissioned into the Indian Navy in 1984, 1985, and 1986, respectively.
During her initial years, Cheetah was based in Kochi and Chennai for brief periods, and Kumbhir and Guldar were based in Visakhapatnam.
The ships were subsequently re-based at Andaman and Nicobar Command, where they served until their decommissioning on January 12.
These ships were in active naval service for nearly 40 years and collectively traversed about 17 lakh nautical miles whilst being at sea for over 12,300 days. As the amphibian platforms of the Andaman and Nicobar Command, these ships have conducted over 1300 beaching operations for the landing of army troops ashore.
During their illustrious journeys, these ships played notable roles during Operation Aman as part of IPKF operations, Operation Tasha, and contributed to relief operations after the 1997 cyclone off Sri Lanka and the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.
