India has sold its first aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, to a ship breaker for 10 million U. S. dollars, following an auction, sources said Wednesday.

INS Vikrant, purchased as HMS Hercules from Britain in 1957, had played a key role in enforcing the naval blockade on East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971.

"The Indian Navy vessel was sold to a company named I.B. Commercial Pvt Ltd. The company has 30 days to pay the money and tow the ship away," the sources said.

The ship was commissioned as the first aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy in 1961. After a distinguished service, it was decommissioned in January 1997 and preserved as a museum ship in Cuffe Parade in Mumbai, until it was closed in 2012 due to safety concerns.

But after the government of the western Indian state of Maharashtra expressed its inability to maintain the museum ship and the High Court in Mumbai also refused to halt its auction, the ship was finally sold.

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