India Denies Missile Threat To Pakistan Non-Nuclear Weapons Reportedly Moved To Border With Archenemy

Prime Minister I.K. Gujral, who has worked to normalize India’s relations with regional archenemy Pakistan, denied Wednesday that India has deployed ballistic missiles along the Pakistani border and condemned news reports of the alleged move as “a deliberate misrepresentation.”

Citing U.S. intelligence officials, the Washington Post reported last week that India had moved fewer than a dozen medium-range Prithvi missiles to a site in northwest India within about 60 miles of Pakistan’s border. The missiles, capable of carrying conventional but not nuclear warheads, are produced in the distant southern city of Hyderabad.

An Indian newspaper, the Hindu, reported Monday that Prithvi missiles had been stored but not deployed at the site, near Jullundur city in the Punjab Province.

The news accounts baffled observers who have watched Gujral guide India toward less-hostile relations with Pakistan, first as foreign minister for nearly a year and then as prime minister for the last two months. U.S. officials expressed concern that India’s action could reignite a strategic arms race between two countries that are capable of producing nuclear weapons and have fought three wars since 1947.

But Gujral told reporters Wednesday in the western city of Pune that India has not deployed Prithvi missiles anywhere in the country.

“It is no secret for me to say that we have acquired the missile technology, but it is wrong to say - and a deliberate misrepresentation - that we have deployed them,” Gujral said. “I do hope this message will be taken in, because we are keen to pursue peace in this region, and we shall continue to do it.”

Gujral did not specifically address the issue of whether Prithvi missiles had been moved to Jullundur, where part of his family relocated from Pakistan after the violent partition of British colonial India in 1947.

From Jullundur, a city of 500,000 and home to a major military installation, Prithvi missiles could reach Lahore, capital of Pakistan’s Punjab. Lahore is about 80 miles away, just within the Prithvi’s range of 93 miles. Pakistan has contended that India designed the missile with a range just long enough to reach Pakistan’s major cities.