Former Pakistani military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf said he considered the use of nuclear weapons against India in the midst of tensions following the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 but decided not to do so for fear of reprisals, according to a report by the press.
Musharraf, 73, also recalled spending many sleepless nights wondering if he could or could deploy nuclear weapons, the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun said.
The former president revealed that in the midst of tensions between India and Pakistan after the 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, he contemplated the use of nuclear weapons but decided not to do so for fear of reprisals.
When tensions were high in 2002, there was a “danger when it could have crossed the nuclear threshold,” the paper quoted Musharraf as saying.
At that time, Musharraf had publicly said he would not rule out the possibility of using nuclear weapons.
Musharraf also said, however, that at the time, neither India nor Pakistan had nuclear warheads on their missiles, so it would have taken them a day or two to get them ready to launch.
When asked if he had ordered the missiles to be equipped with nuclear warheads and put in a firing position, he said: “We did not do that and we do not believe that India also did it, thank God” – pointing, perhaps, to a Fear To reprisals, the newspaper reported.
Subsequently, the two countries avoided a full collision and tensions declined.
The then army chief Musharraf expelled the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif in a coup in October 1999. The army general served as president from 2001 to 2008.
Musharraf has been living in Dubai since last year when he was allowed to leave Pakistan under pretext of medical treatment. He has been accused of involvement in the murder of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007.
