Need to protect fissile material from extremists: Pak nuke expert

It is important to protect fissile material from extremists in Pakistan more than nuclear bombs because the latter has multi-layer security unlike the former, a senior Pakistani nuclear expert today opined.
Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor of Physics and Mathematics at Forman Christian College University in Lahore, said there was no need of India and Pakistan to test the nuclear bomb in 1998 as both knew the capacity of the atomic weapon they possessed.
Speaking about the threat of extremists to nuclear warheads in Pakistan, Hoodbhoy said, "Even if Taliban or other extremists organisations can get the weapons, which is not impossible, the nuclear weapons have several locks and passwords. I hope Pakistani weapons too have the Permissible Action Limit (PALs) to ensure the security of weapons.

"But it is the fissile material which should be protected. However, to make a bomb out of it one requires 80-90 kgs of enriched uranium. However, even in this case, it will be very primitive," he said.
Hoodbhoy was delivering a lecture on future of India-Pakistan relations and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit's impact on it. The lecture was organised by Centre for Policy Analysis.
Noting that testing of atomic bomb by any nation is for sending "political messages", he said India and Pakistan could have avoided it.

"India could have avoided testing the (nuclear) bomb. Pakistan too could have avoided not responding to it. It is fairly simple matter to understand the magnitude. The amount of material and purity of material and the core of the uranium bomb. Any PhD Student would have estimated the yield of the bomb.

"Testing of fission bombs is done for sending a political message... The way North Korea does by testing fission bombs," he said.
India and Pakistan both being nuclear weapon states affects the security atmosphere in the region, owing to the uneasy relations between the two. It is estimated that Pakistan has 120-130 nuclear war heads while India has around 100-110 atomic weapons.