In an effort to keep afloat the memories of India’s first aircraft carrier and long-decommissioned warship “INS Vikrant”, a ‘Vikrant Memorial’ was unveiled on a traffic island along the K Subash Marg, opposite the lion Gate of Naval Dockyard in south Mumbai.
In a development that came fifteen months after the historic voyage of India’s first aircraft carrier ended, Western Naval Command’s Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Vice Admiral SPS Cheema and Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta unveiled the Vikrant memorial. Commodore Medioma Bhada (Retd), of the Vikrant Memorial Forum and an ex-pilot of Vikrant explained to those present that the memorial is a sculpture created with pieces of metal recovered from the ship-breaking yard and belonged to the decommissioned ship.
INS Vikrant, which the Indian Navy bought it from Royal Navy as part of Indo-British defence agreement in 1957, had played a key role during the 1971 Indo-Pak War that led to the liberation of Bangladesh. She was decommissioned in 1997 after 36 years of service. The scrapping of the legendary warship got underway at the Darukhana ship breaking yard in south Mumbai on November 21, 2014.