India building secret nuclear city

CHALLAKERE, India: Two secretive agencies are behind a nuclear city project that experts say will be the Subcontinent’s largest military-run complex of nuclear centrifuges, atomic-research laboratories, and weapons — and aircraft-testing facilities when it’s completed, probably sometime in 2017, says a report published by the Foreign Policy.

According to the report, the project is meant to expand the government’s nuclear research to produce fuel for India’s nuclear reactors and to help power the country’s fleet of new submarines.

But another, more controversial ambition, according to retired Indian government officials and independent experts in London and Washington, is to give India an extra stockpile of enriched uranium fuel that could be used in new hydrogen bombs, also known as thermonuclear weapons, substantially increasing the explosive force of those in its existing nuclear arsenal.

India’s close neighbors, China and Pakistan, would see this move as a provocation: Experts say they might respond by ratcheting up their own nuclear firepower.

New Delhi has never published a detailed account of its nuclear arsenal, which it first developed in 1974, and there has been little public notice outside India about the construction at Challakere and its strategic implications.

But a lengthy investigation by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), including interviews with local residents, senior and retired Indian scientists and military officers connected to the nuclear program, and foreign experts and intelligence analysts, has pierced some of the secrecy surrounding the new facility, parts of which are slated to open in 2016.

This new facility will give India a nuclear capability — the ability to make many large-yield nuclear arms — that most experts say it presently lacks.

The independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates that India already possesses between 90 and 110 nuclear weapons, as compared to Pakistan’s estimated stockpile of up to 120. China, which borders India to the north, has approximately 260 warheads.

The enlargement of India’s thermonuclear program would position the country alongside the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, Israel, France, and China, which already have significant stockpiles of such weapons.

Spokesmen for the two organizations involved in the Challakere construction, the Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), which has played a leading role in nuclear weapons design, declined to answer any of CPI’s questions, including about the government’s ambitions for the new park. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs also declined to comment.

Western analysts, speaking on condition of anonymity, say, however, that preparation for this enrichment effort had been underway for four years, at a second top-secret site known as the Rare Materials Plant, 160 miles to the south of Challakere, near the city of Mysore.  

Satellite photos of that facility from 2014 have revealed the existence of a new nuclear enrichment complex that is already feeding India’s weapons program and, some Western analysts maintain, laying the groundwork for a more ambitious hydrogen bomb project. 

Gary Samore, who served from 2009 to 2013 as the White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, said there was little misunderstanding. 

“I believe that India intends to build thermonuclear weapons as part of its strategic deterrent against China,” said Samore. It is unclear, he continued, when India will realize this goal of a larger and more powerful arsenal, but “they will.”

A former senior British official who worked on nuclear issues likewise said intelligence analysts on both sides of the Atlantic are “increasingly concerned” about India’s pursuit of thermonuclear weapons and are “actively monitoring” both sites. 

US officials in Washington said they shared this assessment. “Mysore is being constantly monitored, and we are constantly monitoring progress in Challakere,” a former White House official said.  

Meanwhile, Pakistan Thursday sent alarm bells ringing when it announced that the international community should take note of the fact that India was building “a secret nuclear city in South Asia”, designed to produce thermonuclear weapons as stated by an investigative report by the “Foreign Policy”.

“Indian defence build-up, both nuclear and conventional, is a direct threat to Pakistan and the region, at large. India completed its plan of nuclear triad recently with the commissioning of nuclear capable submarine. It has been building Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles and Anti-Ballistic missile system. It has stockpile of fissile material for producing nuclear weapons outside the IAEA safeguards”, Foreign Office spokesman told the weekly media briefing.

The spokesman pointed out that the ‘perils’ of such an uncalled for defence build-up should be seen in the backdrop of Indian Defence Minister’s statement on reviewing the ‘nuclear no-first use’ and admission by the Indian Army Chief about their ‘Cold Start doctrine’, which confirmed Pakistan’s claims and justified its credible minimum nuclear deterrence.

“With conventional weapons balance already disturbed, India’s nuclear weapons build-up has dangerous proportions to tip the strategic balance and endanger the peace of the region and beyond. 

“The international community should take note and check Indian rapid expansion in conventional and nuclear weapons,” commented the spokesman. To a query, he rejected Indian claims Pakistan had rejected the Indian claim as it was nothing but a fake propaganda by the Indian side. The ISPR has already issued a statement in this regard, and have also taken the local and international media personnel to that area, where they saw no signs of what India falsely claimed as surgical strikes”.

Pakistan also says it has taken a very serious view of the continuing ceasefire violations by India at the LoC. “Violations by the Indian side has crossed more than 400 times in a few months, is a matter of serious concern. We have raised this issue repeatedly with the international community bilaterally and at various forums, and how this Indian belligerence is dangerously impacting peace and security in the region”, he added.

With the recent changes in regional dynamics Pakistan and Russia have taken bilateral relations a few notches up and this sees the Russian Energy Minister already in town. “The ongoing visit of the Russian minister is to discuss the technical aspects and other related details of the Pipeline project. The negotiations are progressing well”, announced the spokesman.

Commenting on the Defence Agreement of 2015, the spokesman pointed out that defence cooperation between the two countries is an important component in the multifarious bilateral relations, which is progressing well under the said agreement. “Both sides are interested in enhancing cooperation in various areas of mutual interest. Russia is also participating in the Naval peace exercises”, he added.

Explaining participation of Pakistan in the regional conference on Afghanistan organized by Russia which will also include India, to a query the spokesman remarked, “Pakistan is committed to seeing peace in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s participation in the Heart of Asia Conference has a similar stance. And world had seen the attitude of one country, which actually exposed that country”, he said.

Pakistan’s participation at the conference, he said, was  a manifestation that Pakistan was fully committed to efforts aimed at bringing peace and stability in Afghanistan.

“Understandably, the meeting in Moscow is about the situation in Afghanistan. Pakistan is deeply committed to see a peaceful and stable Afghanistan and extend sincere cooperation in all such initiatives that are aimed at bringing peace in Afghanistan”, he noted.

Commenting on the new immigration laws being enforced by the Trump administration the spokesman clarified, “We are in touch with the new Administration in D.C. and have been assured that no proposal to include Pakistan in the list of banned countries is under consideration. US Embassy in Islamabad has also issued a statement to this effect”.

“These are completely baseless allegations. The so-called secret nuclear city is a figment of Pakistan’s imagination,” said Vikas Swarup, spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs, in Delhi.  “India has always been in compliance with its international obligations,” he said.