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Ghauri highlights need to refashion security measures

Pakistan's successful test-firing of its 1,500-km intermediate range ballistic missile, Ghauri (Hatf V) has brought into sharp focus the urgent need for India to articulate a clear ballistic missile production and deployment policy.

The fillip received by the Pakistani missile programme of late also calls for a refashioning of India's approach to regional security on the strength of its indigenous capabilities.

Also, the quick development of an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile by Pakistan, which is said to be capable of delivering conventional, chemical and nuclear warheads, is another unmistakable pointer to continuing Sino-Pak collaboration in Islamabad's missile development programme.

That the Chinese dimension of Pakistan's missile programme was a cause for concern was reflected in Defence Minister George Fernandes's first reaction to the test-firing of Ghauri when he said, ''This was a serious issue.''

''It is up to the United States to find out what is happening between China and Pakistan with regard to missile technology transfer, but there is no need for India to raise the matter with Washington,'' Fernandes said.

Pakistan is perceived to have acquired missile capability in the late 1980s, and the Hatf series is averred to be a variation of the Chinese M-11/M-9 family.

Ballistic missiles, per se, are understood to have received a greater degree of attention after the 1991 Gulf war when the Iraqi Scud missile highlighted the kind of anxiety that trans-border military capability could induce even among militarily powerful nations.

While India's integrated guided missile development programme launched in 1980 relied on indigenous resources, Pakistan mostly went in for imports and technology transfer from external sources.

Pakistan has launched a high-voltage campaign by highlighting the Prithvi deployment scare, though officially denied by India, to legitimise its missile programme and to give it a push.

UNI

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