New Delhi, June 18: India had deployed at least five nuclear-tipped missiles including Agni for retaliatory strikes during the Kargil conflict, a security expert has claimed.Quoting another expert that "four nuclear armed Prithvis and one Agni were deployed for retaliatory strikes during Kargil", the expert, Dr Sanjay Badri-Maharaj, said "this I later more or less confirmed independently."In an article on "Nuclear India's Status" in a leading defence journal, he said in 1996-97, India "actually began work on mating nuclear warheads to missiles" after the clearance given by the H D Deve Gowda Government."This was confirmed to me in 1997 by a former artillery officer. This required modifications in safety locking systems and validating the mechanism's ability to withstand high-G (gravitation) forces," he said in the forthcoming issue of Indian Defence Review.Badri-Maharaj, who is authoring a book titled "The Armageddon Factor", said two tests for the mechanism to mount and trigger warheads were done on Prithvi SS-250 missiles before these were formally deployed in September 1997.Stating that it was difficult to estimate how many nuclear weapons India had, the expert said the weaponisation programme "has certainly taken place - with full mock delivery trials being completed by 1994". A rudimentary system was in place from 1986-88, he added.To counter the claim by certain US officials that Indian nuclear capabilities could not match those of Pakistan, the expert said India possessed a "fully viable and operational nuclear warhead capability" for an intermediate range ballistic missile from April 11 last year when Agni-II was tested."The importance of Agni-II test was that as part of its payload, a nuclear weapons assembly minus its plutonium core, was mounted. This was to test whether all systems, including the safety locks would work," Badri-Maharaj said, adding he had confirmed that Defence Research and Development Organisation was working on such a system since late 1996.He said the Indian Air Force had conducted a number of experiments to find the most suitable aircraft. "The Jaguar was initially selected - the MiG-27 fleet, though equally suitable, was earmarked for operations. But two things counted against it," the defence expert said."There was a somewhat inadequate ground clearance and with a heavy centreline payload, two drop tanks and two R-550 air-to-air missiles, Jaguar's performance is somewhat sluggish," he said.This, he said, was the reason for selection of Mirage-2000 as the primary strike aircraft. "Weapons have been available for air delivery since 1986-88 - believed to be 12-15 kilotonne fission weapons."Badri-Maharaj also claimed that there were at least two "hardened sites" for storage of nuclear weapons.
