March 27, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 23, 1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

NEW DELHI, March 26: India test-fired a nuclear-capable, short-range surface-to-surface missile on Wednesday, a defence official said, adding it was a routine test of a missile already in use by the army.

The missile, Prithvi, has a range of 150km. Analysts say it is mainly intended to reach targets in Pakistan.

The test was from a launchpad in Balasore on the country’s eastern seaboard.

“It’s just one of those routine tests,” the official, who did not want to be named, told Reuters. “It is the version that is already with the army. There is nothing big about it.”

The test came a day after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for stoking violence in occupied Kashmir where 24 Hindus were shot dead by suspected militants late on Sunday.

India had said in January it planned to test Prithvi along with a range of other missiles.

That test, however, was not conducted though defence scientists test-fired other missiles including a shorter-range version of the nuclear-capable, surface-to-surface ballistic missile, Agni.

The Agni-1 version has a range of about 800 kilometres.—Reuters