A Pakistani nuclear weapons scientist, Dr Iftikhar Khan Chaudhry, who defected to the US in a dramatic manner and claimed that Islamabad had planned a pre-emptive nuclear strike against India, has ensured his 12 minutes of fame. Speaking to reporters in New York on July 1, Khan charged: "Pakistan decided on a pre-emptive attack on India as the Pakistani government had information that India was planning to attack Pakistan and the target was Kahuta (the site of a secret nuclear weapons laboratory near Islamabad.)" At a news conference in the plush
Madison Avenue law offices of Wildes & Weinberg, Khan alleged that Pakistani military and political officials agreed at an April 25 meeting to attack within a couple of days. Khan claims he opposed the plans and fled Pakistan after receiving death threats from government offi-cials. According to Khan's account, Pakistan had already armed and deployed missiles with nuclear warheads at two sites along the Indian border and had enough fissionable material for 12 to 18 warheads. He added that he had seen Iranian and Chinese personnel at Pakistan's nuclear plants and that the programme had been funded by sources based in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
While Pakistani officials went into overdrive to dub Khan and his allegations as a hoax, security analysts in India too dismissed the defection story. Kanti Bajpai of the School of International Studies, JNU, for instance, feels that it could well be an ISI plot aimed at further internationalising the Kashmir issue.
