On Tuesday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, in a statement over the inadvertent firing of a missile on March 9, which Pakistan said landed 124 kilometres deep inside its territory, assured the House that the “missile system is very reliable and safe”.
In Parliament, Singh said, “The Government has taken serious note of the incident. A formal high-level inquiry has been ordered. The inquiry would determine the exact cause of the said accident," adding that, “I would also like to state that a review of the Standard Operating Procedures for operations, maintenance and inspections is being conducted in the wake of this incident."
Last week, India had acknowledged that a “technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile”. Singh in Parliament said, “The Government has taken serious note of the incident. A formal high-level inquiry has been ordered. The inquiry would determine the exact cause of the said accident.”
He added, “I would also like to state that a review of the Standard Operating Procedures for operations, maintenance and inspections is being conducted in the wake of this incident."
On Friday, India acknowledged that one of its missiles had mistakenly been fired into Pakistan two days earlier. Pakistan criticized India’s “callousness and ineptitude” in a “nuclear environment.” And that, so far, has been the end of the matter — a subdued aftermath that many saw as nothing short of a small miracle.
The two neighbors have fought several bloody conflicts, and the mere suspicion of covert support for militant attacks has brought them to the verge of war in the past. The mistrust runs so deep that pigeons crossing the border have been captured on suspicion of being used for espionage.
Analysts in India commended the Pakistani military, the country’s most powerful institution, for its reserved response to the missile firing, which apparently caused no casualties. That muted reaction seems to have headed off what could have become a disastrous escalation.
The United States on Friday said that there is no indication that the recent firing of a missile from India which landed in Pakistan was “anything other than accidental.”
“We have no indication as you also heard from our Indian partners that this incident was anything other than an accident,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters in response to a question at his daily news conference on Monday.
“We refer you of course to the Indian Ministry of Defence for any follow up. They issued a statement on March 9th to explain precisely what had happened. We don’t have a comment beyond that,” Price added.
