India had carried out five nuclear tests on 12 May 1998 amidst fanfare. Ruling BJP proudly declared all the tests successful. Despite US doubts it was claimed that 45 KT yield had been achieved.
Abdul Kalam was rewarded and made President of India. Scientist K. Santhanan who was part of Pokharan II tests and is senior scientist in DRDO, has now revealed after over a decade that yield of thermonuclear explosion was much below expectations and tests were a fizzle rather than a big bang. In other words, it was a failure.
He has urged the government not to sign CTBT since more tests were required for Hydrogen bomb to perfect the device. Although the UPA government and BJP have disagreed with his contention, however, the fact is that he could not have made this revelation on such a sensitive matter without the blessing of policy makers. Anyone with little IQ would discern that the real motive is to pave the way for conducting more nuclear tests and build a full-scale thermonuclear bomb, and also avert signing CTBT.
Indian army chief Gen Deepak Kapoor tried to tickle Pakistan by asserting that India has never been a threat to Pakistan. Till very recent he was breathing fire and giving haughty statements. He has no say in Indian decision making body and remains at the beck and call of Lok-Sabha to do as told to do. Hence his assurance is deceptive and deepens mistrust rather than promoting trust and confidence. His assurance will be worthwhile when Indian forces down grades its force levels which are presently too much in access to actual threat level.
After his so-called assurance he is now seeking a review of India’s nuclear doctrine and wants it to be expanded and upgraded. In his and Indian naval chief view, 70-90 nukes with Pakistan are excessive and go beyond concept of minimum credible deterrence. They say that Pakistan has exceeded minimum nuclear deterrence level. They also claim that Pakistan has improved upon US made Harpoon missiles issued to Pak Navy for use by ground troops. US media too has publicized these concerns. Indian media joined by political hawks, scientists, intellectuals are indulging in heated debates and exerting pressure on the government to review nuclear doctrine and conduct further nuclear tests to maintain superiority over Pakistan. The tirade spearheaded by Indian COAS against suspected expansion of Pak nuclear arsenal is devious and is meant to justify Indian expansionist program and to undermine Pakistan nuclear program.
Soon after Pakistan acquired weapon graded nuclear strength as well as means of delivery, Indo-US-Israeli nexus put their heads together how to deprive Pakistan from this capability which had the potential of preventing India from becoming unchallenged power of South Asia and thus frustrating their future expansionist designs. One of the major objectives of USA to capture Afghanistan was to make use of Afghan soil to disable Pakistan’s nuclear capability and to convert it into a vassal state. With this aim in view, the trio commenced its work in real earnest from 2002 onwards to first weaken Pakistan from within through sabotage and subversion, commit Pak Army in futile war on terror and defame it, degrade ISI and defang it, empower democratic government of its choice under all-powerful civilian president and make it totally subservient to wishes of Washington and then get closer to our nuclear sites and steal them by hook or crook.
Like USA, India also plays up threat posed by religious extremists in Pakistan and harps on the theme that Pak nukes are insecure and are liable to be stolen by terrorists. In order to indicate interest of terrorists in Pak nukes a fake interview was given to a private TV channel by Afghan based so-called Al-Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid on 22 June. He boasted of using Pak nuclear weapons against the US. It was a clear cut put up show to legitimize takeover of our nuclear assets by US marines. The interview was given in Khost (eastern province of Afghanistan), which inadvertently laid to rest the speculation by western countries and US officials including Hillary Clinton that Al-Qaeda leadership is based in FATA.
Among several deadly plans executed to either make Pakistani leadership willingly hand over our nukes, or to destroy them or hijack them, one of the plans hatched was to make use of RAW trained Pakistani militants. Indo-western media had already sold this story to the world community and had conditioned their minds about such a possibility. To our good luck, our ever vigilant intelligence agencies learnt about the wicked plan in early July that RAW-Mossad had jointly conceived a plan to target Pak nuclear sites with the help of specially trained terrorist squad. India had allocated $25 million to recruit and train 500 terrorists belonging to Baitullah group along with some Afghanis and Indians skilled in specialised operations. The squad was tasked to mount attacks on one or more nuclear sites of Pakistan located in Frontier Province to create a world wide sensation and fright. The idea was to shake the confidence of US Administration about Pakistan’s foolproof nuclear security system.
Phase-2 of the plan envisaged use of small kiloton tactical nuclear bomb against US/Nato installation in Afghanistan to show to the world that Islamic terrorists had managed to steal a bomb as had been feared, and that Pak nukes having become highly unsafe must be secured. In actuality, the bomb had already been stolen from Kaiga Atomic Power Plant in Karnataka through an Indian scientist Lokanathan Mahalingham. The dead body of the scientist was recovered from Kali River on 13 June under mysterious conditions and the matter was hushed up. He had been murdered either to wash off all footprints or else he was about to spill the beans. Ironically, raucous and scandalous Western media did not utter a word about the incident. Premature leakage sabotaged the plan but it has not been shelved.
On 16 May Manmohan Singh told Obama that nuclear sites in Pakistan restive NWFP had partly come in the hands of Islamic extremists. Same day, his telephonic conversation was leaked by Israeli security website Debka and widely publicised. Once Pak Army turned the tide in its favor in Swat and US officials became appreciative and started to change their opinion about the safety of Pak nukes, there was lot of grumbling in India. Efforts are in hand to change perceptions from positive to negative by making wild allegations that Pak troops had indulged in extra judicial killings in Swat and that Pakistan is expanding its nuclear program. Stories of insecurity of Pak nukes are still in circulation. Like India, US leaders are also worried that Pakistan is striving to make qualitative and quantitative improvements in its arsenal.
While making unsubstantiated allegations against Pakistan India ignores the fact that not a single case of theft or accident has taken place in Pakistan. Conversely, 152 theft cases of uranium have taken place in India since 1984. These thefts have been registered by the police. Hindu extremists in league with certain nuclear scientists are involved in the racket to smuggle nuclear technology to Israel and western countries through clandestine means. No eyebrows have been raised in USA or western world which starts making loud noises even on a fabricated story of a possible theft of a nuke from Pakistan arsenal and deem it dangerous for world security.
Indo-US civilian nuclear deal has allowed India unfettered access to nuclear material and technology from all the suppliers. Since it can import nuclear fuel for its nuclear rectors, its indigenous 300 tons of uranium is available for producing fissile material from eight of Candu Type nuclear plants with 220 mw capacities each. These are outside the purview of IAEA safeguards. Indo-US deal doesn’t impose any restriction on further testing by India. India has been exempted from any penalties in case it resorts to nuclear testing. USA has given a blank cheque to India to expand its nuclear arsenal which is already formidable. In US estimate Pakistan has 70-90 nuclear warheads as against current Indian stock of 200 over and above small tactical nukes. With free access to nuclear materials from international suppliers group, India will be in a position to produce 40 nukes annually.
Purpose of ambitious nuclear build up is not to counter Chinese threat which is not there but to render Pakistan nuclear deterrence impotent. Shutting their eyes to nuclearisation of India, USA has now passed a highly insulting Kerry-Lugar Bill in which among many harsh and unreasonable conditionalities to rob Pakistan of its sovereignty, it has added a clause wherein Pakistan will not only prevent proliferation of nuclear related material and expertise but will also dismantle supplier networks relating to nuclear expansion of nuclear stockpile. The US will not provide any assistance that may help in expanding nuclear stockpile. It implies that Pakistan will be debarred from undertaking any kind of up gradation of its nuclear assets even from its own resources.
Kerry-Lugar contemptuous bill prepared under the aegis of Indian and Israeli lobbies and acclaimed as a great diplomatic triumph by PPP leaders has been vociferously resented by people belonging to all walks of life including the army. It is widely seen as a document of surrender. Under massive pressure, the government has reluctantly agreed to discuss it in the parliament. It is hoped that all clauses which are against national interests would be struck off.
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