New Delhi: India summoned a senior US diplomat on Friday for a second time in two days, after American strikes on three largely Indian-crewed merchant vessels off Oman killed three Indians.
The foreign ministry said it had summoned US Deputy Chief of Mission Jason Meeks to lodge "a strong protest... regarding the continuing attacks by US naval forces on commercial vessels carrying Indian mariners".
The attacks "have already resulted in the tragic and avoidable loss of three Indian lives", the ministry said.
Meeks was first summoned to the foreign ministry on Wednesday, after a US strike on the Palau-flagged MT Settebello off the coast of Oman, which killed three Indian sailors.
That followed a June 8 strike on the MT Marivex, another Palau-flagged tanker. Omani authorities airlifted 24 Indian sailors off the stricken vessel.
After those attacks, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said Meeks was summoned to "register our strong protest".
On Thursday, a Guinea-Bissau-flagged tanker was hit in a US strike. New Delhi said its crew, who included 20 Indian sailors, were rescued.
After that attack, a State Department official in Washington said: "The Department of State is in direct contact with the Government of India regarding this matter."
India is one of the largest contributors of sailors on merchant shipping worldwide, with more than 320,000 active seafarers in 2025, according to the country's shipping ministry.
That ministry warned on Thursday all Indian sailors "serving onboard Indian and foreign-flagged vessels transiting through conflict-affected waters to exercise the highest degree of caution".
"The continuing attacks on shipping in the region are deeply worrisome and are a direct result of the ongoing conflict in the region," Jaiswal said on Thursday. "These attacks must cease."
India's navy also said on Thursday that it had carried out a "high-risk operation" to extract an unexploded missile warhead from the crude oil tanker MT Olympic Life.
The Marshall Islands-flagged tanker was struck off the coast of Oman on May 26, but safely limped to India's southern port of Kochi.
India's navy said that the "projectile had penetrated the vessel's hull, traversed multiple structural compartments and was lodged inside a fuel tank".
Iran has restricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz -- which normally carries about one-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas shipments -- since the United States and Israel launched attacks on February 28.
The United States has imposed its own naval blockade on Iranian ports.
