India’s maritime regulator has ordered shipowners, managers and recruitment firms to stop deploying Indian seafarers on any vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz until further notice, citing a sharp rise in attacks on commercial shipping. The directive, issued late Wednesday by the Directorate General of Maritime Administration, follows the deaths of two Indian crew members in separate incidents over three days and applies to all Indian nationals joining vessels whose voyage plans include the waterway. Masters of ships already operating in the Persian Gulf, the strait and adjacent waters were instructed to maintain heightened security vigilance, continuously monitor navigational warnings and strictly implement the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code.

Viewed from New Delhi, the measure is a direct response to the deteriorating safety of Indian nationals at sea. Government data indicate that more than 300,000 Indians serve on merchant fleets globally, making the country the second- or third-largest supplier of seafarers. At least 13 Indian sailors have been killed in the region since the conflict in West Asia intensified in late February, according to Indian officials cited in domestic media. The regulator said recent attacks on vessels including the Mombasa B, Al Bahyah and GFS Galaxy had “significantly” increased risks to crews, and it announced a new real-time dashboard to track Indian seafarers aboard ships in the Gulf of Oman, the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

From the perspective of shipping industry representatives in India, the order faces practical limits. Manoj Yadav, general secretary of the Forward Seamen’s Union of India, told Bloomberg that the directive cannot be enforced on foreign-flagged and foreign-owned vessels, where India lacks jurisdiction, and that thousands of Indian seafarers are already in the conflict zone and cannot simply be offloaded. The Philippines, the world’s largest supplier of seafarers, earlier instructed its recruitment agencies to halt deployments to the Persian Gulf, a move that Manila later relaxed but which has deepened an existing workforce shortage. India’s government has not yet detailed how it will enforce the ban or whether penalties will apply for non-compliance.

In the Gulf, the security crisis is being driven by a cycle of military action and retaliation. According to US Central Command, American forces have struck Iranian coastal defence sites, missile facilities and command centres to degrade what Washington describes as Iran’s ability to threaten civilian mariners and commercial ships. Tehran, through statements by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and an army spokesman, has asserted that it struck tankers that ignored warnings and turned off navigation systems, and has threatened to keep the strait closed until Washington accepts an Iranian mechanism for administering the waterway. The Strait of Hormuz normally carries about one-fifth of the world’s daily oil supplies, and analysts in the Gulf note that Dubai is already planning an alternative port on the UAE’s eastern coast to reduce dependence on the chokepoint. India’s shipping ministry continues to monitor the situation, and the advisory remains in effect with no stated end date.