'India might not be able to defend itself from Pakistani missiles'

A nuclear expert from Moscow said despite heavy investments in developing anti-ballistic missile systems, India may not be able to defend itself from strikes by Pakistani missiles.

"Even in 10 years and with the huge budgets India plans to spend on the development of nuclear weapons and capabilities, it will not be able to defend its territory from possible strikes from Pakistan," Dawn online quoted Petr Topychkanov, a senior researcher at the Carnegie Moscow Centre's Non-Proliferation Programme, as saying on Wednesday.

Topychkanov said despite large-scale cooperation between India and Israel for the development of a ballistic missile defence system and Indian efforts for acquiring S-400 defence systems from Russia, "India is very far from developing any system that could effectively defend itself from a Pakistani missile".

Last Sunday India tested an Advanced Air Defence (AAD) interceptor missile and is working on developing a multi-layer ballistic missile defence system and Pakistan has expressed concerns over the test.

It is feared that the development of anti-ballistic missile systems may give Indian strategists a false sense of security when contemplating military action against Pakistan with the belief that they can take care of an incoming missile.

The possession of such a system could also increase pre-emption tendencies among Indian military planners. Pakistan experts also feel that with the short missile flight time between India and Pakistan, it will be impossible for intercepting incoming missiles.

Talking about India's candidature for the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Topychkanov said the world will be cautious about India.

"The nuclear waiver given to India became a very important part of the lesson for the international community because Delhi did not give a lot in exchange, it didn't change policies and approaches," he said.

--IANS

py/vt