New Delhi: Retorting to architect of Pakistan's nuclear programme, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan's threatening remarks, Indian experts said that India too is capable of targeting whole of Pakistan.


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Speaking on the anniversary of first nuclear tests in Pakistan, Khan was quoted as saying that nuclear-armed Pakistan has the ability to target Indian capital Delhi from Kahuta near Rawalpindi in five minutes.


Condemning his remarks, Director of Vivekanand International Foundation, former Army chief Gen NC Vij said that India too can target whole of Pakistan, but nuclear weapons are meant for resistance and not for attacks, states Nav Bharat Times report.


“Let's assume that Pakistan Army General supposedly gives order for nuclear attack tomorrow, even then it will take them around six hours to initiate the process considering the peacetime vigilance,” he added.


 


Furthermore, Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Air Power Studies Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur told NBT that AQ Khan's remark was nothing, but a mere publicity stunt. 


The 80-year-old nuclear physicist Khan had further said that Pakistan could have become a nuclear power as early as 1984 but the then President General Zia ul Haq "opposed the move". 


"We were able and we had a plan to launch nuclear test in 1984. But President General Zia ul Haq had opposed the move," PTI quoted him as saying.


 


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. 

He regretted the treatment and said Pakistan would never have achieved the feat of becoming first Muslim nuclear country without his "services". 


(With PTI inputs)