A day after Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh ‘explained’ to Indianparliament how a missile was “inadvertently launched” on March 9 and landedin Pakistan link, a Bloomberg reportclaims that Indian Air Forcelink have now movedto shut link down all the missile systemslink to avoid any furtherlaunches as Pakistan link had prepared tolaunch a similar missile in a retaliatory strike.
Pakistan link held back because aninitial assessment indicated something was amiss, Bloomberg quoted unnamedsources as saying.
The Indian Air Force link firedthe BrahMos medium-range cruise missile from Punjab’s Ambala, about 200 kmfrom Delhi, the Bloomberg report said. The missile damaged some residentialproperty in Pakistan link but caused nocasualties.
India didn’t use the direct hotline between the top army commanders on bothsides to inform Pakistan link, theBloomberg report said. Instead, Indian Air Forcelink officials moved to shutlink down the missile systemslink to avoid any furtherlaunches
Both the Indian Air Forcelink andthe Ministry of Defence in India have declined to respond to questionsposed by NDTV on this report.
The Pakistan link Air Force said ittracked the flight path of the missile from Sirsa in Haryana to its landingspot in Mian Channu city in Pakistan linkPunjab, ISPR DG Major General Babar Iftikhar said last weekend.
The government had said that the accidental firing took place because of a”technical malfunction in the course of routine maintenance”.
In parliament, Rajnath Singh said the government is reviewing StandardOperating Procedures for operations, maintenance and inspections after theincident link. “India gives utmostpriority to the safety and security of its missile systemslink and any gap revealed by theprobe will be addressed,” he said.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Tuesday “if Pakistanlink Air Force didn’t pick it up insideIndia and it was matched with an accident reaction”, the consequences wouldhave been “very serious”.
The US has backed India and said there is no indication that the missilefiring was anything other than accidental.
“We have no indication as you also heard from our Indian partners that thisincident link was anything other than anaccident,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters on Monday.