NEW DELHI, Feb 18: A lesson from the Mumbai nightmare was that the Indian coastline remained vulnerable not only to conventional terrorists but also to smuggling of nuclear weapons in commercial containers,” India’s Naval Chief Admiral Suresh Mehta warned on Wednesday.

“Today, 70-75 per cent global cargo is containerised,” Admiral Mehta told a seminar organised by the National Maritime Foundation here.

“It is acknowledged that the container is the most likely means for terrorist organisations to illegally transport a nuclear weapon and, hence, there is a serious concern about container security.”

He said the entry of nuclear weapons through containers was only one aspect of the concern of security agencies and these should be scanned thoroughly to ensure 100 per cent security.

“We have to ensure 100 per cent security at ports by scanning them (containers) under X-ray machines. Every country has to accede to it that wherever, whichever port the container leaves from, that country certifies that this container is fully secure,” Press Trust of India quoted Admiral Mehta as saying.

Asked to comment on the threat from the Taliban, the naval chief said: “I think that the type of low end threats such as light intensity operations, light intensity maritime operations and similar things will keep going on in the future. We have to be certainly more concerned with these kinds of threats.”

The United States intelligence agencies had warned India “twice” about a potential maritime attack on Mumbai at least a month before audacious terror strikes in November.