India lacks deterrence: Santhanam

NEW DELHI: Countering National Security Advisor M K Narayanan’s remarks on the Pokhran-II tests, former DRDO scientist K Santhanam on Monday said that he hoped for at least two more nuclear tests as the country was yet to acquire minimum deterrence.

Continuing to raise questions on the efficacy of the 1998 hydrogen bomb test, Mr Santhanam called for the setting up of an independent panel to probe the results of Pokhran II and maintained that there was a need to reopen the debate on nuclear testing.

The claims and demand by a senior scientist comes at a time when India is expected to come under increased pressure to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Both these treaties would legally bind India from testing a nuclear weapon. But a section of the scientific community believes that India still lacks minimum deterrence against China and that there is a need to carry out further nuclear tests.

The DRDO scientist, who was one of the four key scientists associated with Pokhran-II, had earlier called the May 11, 1998, tests a ‘fizzle’ and had warned against signing CTBT. On Monday, Mr Santhanam took this argument forward and said that there was a need to reanalyse the test data. “The trouble lies in what data was included in the BARC analysis and what was not. There is a wealth of seismic and other data, which reveal that the thermonuclear device underperformed,” Mr Santhanam said countering Mr Narayanan’s contention that nobody could contest the proven data of the Pokhran tests. “There is a large body of evidence in seismology circles around the world and India, which raised doubts about the yield, immediately after the test,” he added.

At the same time, Mr Santhanam also slammed Mr Narayanan for calling his claims ‘horrific’ and questioning his credibility. He said the national security advisor was “barking up the wrong tree” by contending he was not privy to test measurements and information and suggested that Mr Narayanan had given “misleading” statement over 1998 explosions as he was not NSA at that time. The National Security Advisor had asserted that India had thermonuclear capabilities and it has been verified by a peer group of researchers.

According to Mr Santhanam, the hydrogen bomb test, which was the second and most powerful of the three tests conducted on May 11, 1998, did not produce the desired yield. Saying that the H-bomb did not explode with its designed power equivalent of 25,000 tonnes of TNT, he claimed that the physical evidence at the site was also another proof of the failure of the thermo-nuclear device.

Mr Santhanam opined that the Atomic Energy Commission and BARC could not be ‘judge and jury’ on the claims of the thermo-nuclear yield. “There is a strong and clear need to form a group of stalwarts and give them access to all relevant data. Only then will credibility increase,” he said. On why it took him 11 years to raise the Pokhran issue, he said he had already told the government about the failure of the test in 50-page classified report submitted in 1998.

Mr Santhanam’s arguments were bolstered by Ashok Parthasarthi, former S&T adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who contended that the country needed to debate the nuclear testing issue in the same manner the Sharm-el-Sheikh Indo-Pak joint statement was debated.

But he acknowledged that the decision to conduct nuclear tests had to be taken by the government of the day. “It is up to the government of the day to factor in the political and diplomatic inputs and take a decision. When Agni-III becomes operational, will you send it with a 20 kilotonne fission bomb?”

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Politics/Nation/India-lacks-deterrence-Santhanam/articleshow/5040401.cms

Musharraf rewarded Pak militant who slit throat of Indian officer

ISLAMABAD: Ilyas Kashmiri, a militant commander who fought in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1990s and is believed to have been killed in a recent US drone attack, was once rewarded by Pervez Musharraf for "slitting the throat" of an Indian Army officer in 2000, a media report said. 

Kashmiri, a commander of the Harkat-ul-Jehad al-Islami, was reportedly killed in a drone attack in North Waziristan last week. 

He also served in the elite Special Service Group, a commando unit of the Pakistan Army, and was deputed by the military to train Afghan mujahideen fighting the Russian Army in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s, The News daily reported. 

On February 26, 2000, Kashmiri reportedly conducted a guerrilla operation against the Indian Army in Nakyal sector after crossing the LoC with 25 militants. He surrounded a bunker and threw grenades inside. 

"He was able to kidnap an injured Indian officer whose throat he later slit, the report said. Kashmiri came back to Pakistan with the head of the Indian officer and presented it to top army officials, including then army chief Gen Musharraf, who gave him a cash award of Rs 1 lakh," the report said. 

Pictures of Kashmiri with the head of the dead Indian officer in his hands were published in some Pakistani newspapers and he became very important among militants, the report said.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/Politics/Nation/Musharraf-rewarded-Pak-militant-who-slit-throat-of-Indian-officer/articleshow/5034744.cms

Well-prepared to counter terror strikes: Narayanan

NEW DELHI: National Security Adviser M K Narayanan held out a veiled warning of a repeat of a 26/11-type terror strike, but said the country was better prepared to deal with such a situation, having drawn lessons from the earlier attack. 

He made the remarks when asked during a television interview on Saturday how seriously he was scared that there could be a second major Mumbai like strike on India. “Here you are asking me a question that I live in almost daily dread that something that I am looking at or the home minister P Chidambaram. The home minister takes a daily meeting at which I am also present and when he is not there I take that meeting.” 

“We get so many pieces of intelligence which pass across our table, many you can sort of weed out, but as I said there are quite a few which if they are not able to nip it in bud can turn dangerous. However, it is difficult to say whether we will have another Mumbai because I think we are better prepared perhaps for that kind of situation, but it could be quite serious.” 

Mr Narayanan’s concerns come within days of a warning from Israel’s counter-terror unit about jihadi outfits planning to carry out more attacks across India, especially at sites with a large concentration of Western and Israeli tourists. It suggested the strikes could be orchestrated by Lashker-e-Toiba, which had attacked Mumbai. The travel advisory said the warning was based on a “concrete and very serious threat” to Israelis in India. A leaked copy of the advisory said the potential attackers had Al Qaeda links. 

A week ago, the US issued a travel advisory cautioning its citizens about the possibility of terrorist attacks in India during the festival season as well as the period surrounding the commemoration of the September 11 terror attacks. 

Asked if Pakistan scared him, Mr Narayanan said: “Pakistan may not scare me, but some of Pakistan’s actions scare us, because I don’t think this really adds to anything except creating problems for us.” He said Pakistan’s FIR against Hafiz Saeed did not add any credibility to its commitment to act against the Mumbai accused. Mr Narayan’s view is apparently not in sync with that of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who on Friday hailed the Pakistani police’s action against Saeed as a “good step”. 

“If you take the Saeed dossier that has been provided to Pakistan, I think we have marshaled what I would call Grade 1 evidence. You have the evidence from three people, three human beings, three admittedly terrorists — Kasab, Fahim Ansari, Soharabuddin — who talked of what Saeed had talked to them, what he had said, etc. This is apart from other connecting evidence. I agree one can never be assure what a court would do with that kind of evidence, but if you are not even willing to test that it certainly leaves in our mind a big question mark about where Pakistan stands on terrorism,” Mr Narayanan said. 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Well-prepared-to-counter-terror-strikes-Narayanan/articleshow/5035732.cms