Mush thought of nuking India

Dubai, July 27: Pakistan’s former military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf says he mulled the use of nuclear weapons against India amid tensions following the 2001 terror attack on the Indian Parliament, but decided against doing so out of fear of retaliation, according to a report.

Musharraf, 73, said he had sleepless nights, asking himself whether he would or could deploy nuclear weapons, the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun said.

When tensions were high in 2002, there was a “danger when (the) nuclear threshold could have been crossed,” the paper quoted Mr Musharraf as saying.

At the time, Mr Musharraf had said he would not rule out the possibility of using nuclear weapons.

He said that at the time, neither India nor Pakistan had nuclear warheads on their missiles, so it would have taken one to two days to make them launch-ready.

Dubai, July 27: Pakistan’s former military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf says he mulled the use of nuclear weapons against India amid tensions following the 2001 terror attack on the Indian Parliament, but decided against doing so out of fear of retaliation, according to a report.

Asked whether he had ordered that missiles be equipped with nuclear warheads and put into firing position, he said, “We didn't do that and we don't think India also did that, thank God” -pointing, perhaps, to a fear of retaliation, the paper reported.

The two countries subsequently avoided an all-out clash and tensions subsided.

The then army chief Musharraf ousted the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a coup in October 1999. The army general served as president from 2001 to 2008.