- A Fast Patrol Vessel (FPV) named ICGS Kanaklata Barua was commissioned in the Indian Coast Guard on Wednesday, in Kolkata.
- It is named after a teenage freedom fighter who was shot dead in Assam during the Quit India Movement.
What is the ship?
- It is the fifth and last in a series of FPVs built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) Ltd.
- The other four are ICGS Priyadarshini (named after Indira Gandhi), ICGS Annie Besant, ICGS Kamala Devi (after Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay), and ICGS Amrit Kaur.
- These FPVs are upgraded versions of the inshore patrol vessels with a modified form of the hull and can achieve a speed of 34 knots.
- Such vessels have also been delivered to Indian Navy by GRSE.
- In the Coast Guard these FPVs and their earlier versions belong to the Rajashree class of patrol vessels.
- The previous versions were named ICGS Rajashree, Rajtanag, Rajkiran, Rajkamal, Rajdoot, Rajveer etc; the modified versions are named after freedom fighters.
Who was Kanaklata Barua, after whom it is named?
- One of the youngest martyrs of the Quit India Movement, Kanaklata Barua has iconic status in Assam. Barua, then 17, led the Mukti Bahini, a procession of freedom fighters to unfurl the Tricolour at Gohpur police station on September 20, 1942.
- When police did not let them move forward, an altercation led to firing, killing Barua at the head of the procession.
- The Coast Guard had named an earlier ship after her.
- The previous ICGS Kanaklata Barua was commissioned in 1997 and decommissioned in 2017.
- During its 20-year service, it participated in many search and rescue missions, seizure of foreign fishing vessels venturing into Indian waters and evacuation missions. The ship was dismantled in 2018 and sold as scrap.
SRC : IE
