NEW DELHI – India tested a long-range ballistic missile capable of carryingnuclear weapons on Thursday, paving the way for membership to a small listof countries with access to intercontinental missiles and putting most ofChina in its reach, a New York Times report said.
Agni 5 was launched from Abdul Kalam Island, off Odisha State in easternIndia on Thursday morning, travelling for around 19 minutes and 3,000miles. In a statement, the Indian Ministry of Defense said that allobjectives of the mission had been “successfully met.”
The firing of the ballistic missile comes months after the official end ofa standoff between China and India over a remote sliver of land in theHimalayas, a squabble that lasted for more than two months and that was oneof the worst border disputes between the countries in 30 years.
The launch also comes during a tense period in India’s troubledrelationship with Pakistan.
Nitin Gokhale, an independent national security analyst in New Delhi, saidIndia did not previously have a missile capable of hitting “high-valuetargets” in China. But Thursday’s successful launch of the Agni 5 haschanged the calculus, he said, putting most of China, including majoreastern coastal cities such as Shanghai, in reach.
“If there are hostilities, and if there are contingencies, then India hassomething which can deter China or at least make China think twice,” thereport quoted him as saying.
The Agni 5 is about 55 feet long and was developed in India. It is the mostadvanced missile in the Agni series, with a strike range of more than 3,000miles and a payload of 1.5 tons, which is enough to transport afusion-boosted fission weapon, a type of nuclear device.
Coming after four previous tests, Thursday’s firing of the Agni 5 tookIndia closer to incorporating the missile into its Strategic ForcesCommand, which oversees the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile.
Once that induction process is complete, India will join an elite group ofcountries with access to intercontinental ballistic missiles, a list thatincludes China, Russia and the United States, experts say.
China has criticised India’s development of the Agni 5 in the past. Afteran early test of the missile, Du Wenlong, a researcher at the ChineseAcademy of Military Science, told the Global Times that the Agni 5 had astrike range of about 5,000 miles, rather than 3,000 miles. He said theIndian government had deliberately played down its range “to avoid causingconcern to other countries.”
Indian politicians and defence analysts said they were elated by themissile test, with the country’s president, Ram Nath Kovind, writing onTwitter that the test-firing “makes every Indian proud” and “will boost ourstrategic defence.”