Nuclear-armed Pakistan has the ability to “target” the Indian Capital Delhi in five minutes, the father of Pakistan’s Nuclear programme Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan has said.
Addressing a gathering here on the 18th anniversary of Pakistan’s first nuclear tests, which were carried out under his supervision in 1998, Khan, said Pakistan could have become a nuclear power as early as 1984 but the then President General Zia ul Haq “opposed the move”.
The 80-year-old nuclear physicist said General Zia, who was Pakistan’s President from 1978 to 1988, opposed the Nuclear testing as he believed that the world would intervene militarily. Further, it would have also curtailed international aid Pakistan was receiving due to the ongoing Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
“We were able and we had a plan to launch nuclear test in 1984. But President General Zia ul Haq had opposed the move,” Khan said yesterday.
Khan also said that Pakistan has the ability to “target” Delhi from Kahuta near Rawalpindi in five minutes.
Kahuta is the home to the Kahuta Research laboratories (KRl), Pakistan’s key uranium enrichment facility, linked to the atomic bomb project.
Khan was disgraced in 2004 when he was forced to accept responsibility for nuclear technology proliferation and was forced to live a life of official house arrest. In 2009, the Islamabad High Court declared Khan to be a free citizen of Pakistan, allowing him free movement inside the country.
Indian strategic community rubbishes Khan’s claim
New Delhi: The claim by Dr AQ Khan, father of Pakistan’s Nuclear programme, that it has the capability to hit New Delhi in five minutes from Kahuta near Islamabad, was on Sunday deplored by India’s strategic community which said that India has the capability to hit entire Pakistan but nuclear weapons were not weapons of war but only meant for deterrence.
“It is a very immature and outlandish statement to make. Nuclear missiles are not weapons of war but weapons of deterrence,” said former Army chief Gen NC Vij, Director of think tank Vivekananda International Foundation. He added that India too has the ability to hit entire Pakistan but does not talk about such things.