Musharraf confesses: I mulled using nukes against India in 2001

In a horrifying confession to a Japanese newspaper, former Pakistani president Parvez Musharraf said that he was ploying nuke plans against India after the 2001 Parliament attack. He clearly stated that he had contemplated using nuclear weapons against India, but stopped short out of fear of retaliation from the Indian territory. 

In an interview with the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, Musharraf said that there were high chances of "crossing nuclear threshold" after the 2001 attacks on the Indian Parliament widened the rift between India and Pakistan. The Indian retaliation was also expected to be strong under the leadership of the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee who had mobilised trrops along the Pakistan border and threatened a decisive action. 

Although both India and Pakistan were not in a position to use nuclear weapons against each other since both of them did not have nuclear warheads on their missiles, Musharraf said that it was not impossible to arrange for the same in a day or two. When asked if he had ordered to mount the missile and kept it on stand-by, Musharraf asnwered in denial. "We didn’t do that and we don’t think India also did that, thank God," he said, as reported by the Gulf News. 

Things were calmer after the tension between the two countries subsided. After ousting the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a coup in 1999, he served as the President from 2001-2008. He now lives in Dubai. 

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