bring pressure on the Portuguese to relieve tensions. Meanwhile, Krishna Menon, India's defence minister and head of India's UN delegation, stated in no uncertain terms that India had not "abjured the use of force" in Goa. The US ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, requested the Indian government on several occasions to resolve the issue peacefully through mediation and consensus rather than armed conflict. On 24 November 1961, Sabarmati, a passenger boat passing between the Indian port of Kochi and the Portuguese-held island of Anjidiv, was fired upon by Portuguese ground troops, resulting in the death of a passenger and injuries to the chief engineer. The action was precipitated by Portuguese fears that the boat carried a military landing party intent on storming the island. The incidents lent themselves to fostering widespread public support in India for military action in Goa. Eventually, on 10 December, nine days prior to the armed action, code named Operation Vijay, Nehru stated to the press: "Continuance of Goa under Portuguese rule is an impossibility". The American response was to warn India that if and when India's armed action in Goa was brought to the UN security council, it could expect no support from the US delegation. Annexation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli The hostilities between India and Portugal started seven years before the annexation of Goa, when Dadra and Nagar Haveli were invaded and occupied by pro-Indian forces with the support of the Indian authorities. Dadra and Nagar Haveli were two Portuguese landlocked exclaves of the Daman district, totally surrounded by Indian territory. The connection between the exclaves and the coastal territory of Daman had to be made by crossing about of Indian territory. Dadra and Nagar Haveli did not have any Portuguese military garrison, but only police forces. The Indian government started to develop isolation actions against Dadra and Nagar Haveli already in 1952, including the creation of impediments to the transit of persons and goods between the two landlocked enclaves and Daman; the use of these economic warfare tactics by India caused a deep economic depression in Goa with subsequent hardship for the inhabitants and, in attempt to remedy the situation and with land travel precluded, Salazar established a new airline to communicate the enclaves of Portuguese India with its ports. In July 1954, pro-Indian forces, including members of organisations like the United Front of Goans, the National Movement Liberation Organisation, the