New Delhi: In a mid-sea operation that probably averted a 26/11-like terror attack, a  suspicious fishing boat carrying explosives from Pakistan was intercepted by the Coast Guard in the Arabian Sea but the four occupants on board set the vessel afire and exploded it before it sank with them.

The incident, which resembled the operation undertaken by terrorists from Karachi who had come in a boat before they launched their dreaded attack in Mumbai in Novermber, 2008, took place during the midnight of Dec 31 and Jan 1 when the Coast Guard spotted the vessel about 8 km inside the Indian waters on the maritime boundary with Pakistan.