LAHORE, MAR 21, (DNA) – India could launch a preemptive first strike against Pakistan if in case if it feared that the nuclear attack was imminent.

The daily cited a leading Indian nuclear strategist Vipin Narang, a nuclear strategist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“There is increasing evidence that India will not allow Pakistan to go first,” said Vipin Narang at a conference on nuclear policy.

The nuclear strategist from MIT however professed that the strike will not target urban centres and conventional targets, but instead against the nuclear arsenal of its arch rival for preempting a nuclear attack altogether.

“India’s opening salvo may not be conventional strikes trying to pick off just Nasr batteries (launch vehicles for Pakistan s tactical battlefield nuclear warheads) in the theatre, but a full ‘comprehensive counterforce strike  that attempts to completely disarm Pakistan of its nuclear weapons so that India does not have to engage in iterative tit-for-tat exchanges and expose its own cities to nuclear destruction,” he said.

The relations between both the neighbours have been at their lowest following the Uri attack.