External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday spoke to United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio and registered India’s protest against the US strikes on commercial vessels in the Gulf that killed three Indian seafarers off the coast of Oman.

“I reiterated India’s strong protest at the attacks by the US Navy in the Gulf that killed three Indian mariners,” Jaishankar said in a social media post. “Such lethal actions against commercial shipping are not justified.”

The conversation came hours after the Ministry of External Affairs said it had summoned the US Chargé d’Affaires, Jason Meeks, for the second consecutive day to convey India’s protest against the continued US strikes on ships carrying Indian crew members in West Asia.

Meeks had also been summoned on Thursday to register a protest against Wednesday’s strike on a commercial tanker off the coast of Oman in which three Indians were killed.

Twenty-one members of the crew had been rescued from the Palau-flagged tanker Settebello.

On Thursday, Randhir Jaiswal, the external affairs ministry spokesperson, said that New Delhi had informed Meeks of “our deepest concerns on the ongoing incidents of attacks” and had “registered a strong protest” in the matter.

“These attacks came from the US Navy stationed there,” Jaiswal had said at the government’s press briefing about the war in West Asia.

The US Central Command had acknowledged striking the Settebello, claiming that the vessel had violated the American blockade restricting maritime traffic linked to Iran. The ship was allegedly attempting to transport oil from Iran.

Hours after Meeks was summoned by the ministry on Thursday, the US said that its military had “disabled” another tanker off the coast of Oman as it was allegedly attempting to transport oil from Iran.

Videos posted on social media showed smoke billowing from the Guinea-Bissau-flagged bitumen tanker MT Jalveer, which was located off the port of Shinas in northern Oman. Twenty Indian seafarers on board the vessel were evacuated.

On Monday, another tanker, Marivex, carrying 24 Indian seafarers, was targeted by the US military for allegedly violating the blockade. All crew members were rescued.

New Delhi stated on Thursday that all three ships struck by the US military between Monday and Thursday were foreign-flagged. Two of the ships are sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control and one is “also in the category of non-compliant ships”, Jaiswal had said.

Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.