India to probe accidental missile firing into Pakistan

India on Friday admitted that one of the missiles in its arsenal had landed in Pakistan after being fired accidentally earlier this week.

New Delhi ordered a probe into the accidental firing of the missile, even as Prime Minister Imran Khan's government in Islamabad summoned India's acting envoy to Pakistan and conveyed its “strong protest” over the incident. The envoys of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia – the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – are also likely to be briefed about the incident soon by the senior diplomats of Pakistan.

Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, alleged that the accidental firing of the missile from India had posed a very serious threat to the passengers of the international flights operated by the carriers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The Ministry of Defence of the Government of India did not divulge the details about the missile while expressing regret over its accidental firing. A source in New Delhi, however, said that it was one of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles manufactured in India in collaboration with Russia.

Also Read — India says it accidentally fired missile into Pakistan

The missile was unarmed though. New Delhi did not make it clear if it had alerted Islamabad about the accidental firing of the missile, but Pakistan's air defence system did not take it down after it was launched from India and entered into the airspace of the neighbouring country.

A spokesperson of the Ministry of Defence in New Delhi stated that “a technical malfunction” during the “course of a routine maintenance” had led to the “accidental firing” of the missile last Wednesday. “The Government of India has taken a serious view and ordered a high-level Court of Enquiry,” the MoD stated in a press release on Friday.

The missile had landed at Mian Chunnu city in Punjab in Pakistan just seven minutes after entering the territory of the neighbouring country. “While the incident is deeply regrettable, it is also a matter of relief that there has been no loss of life due to the accident,” the spokesperson of the MoD stated in New Delhi.

Pakistan's senior diplomats conveyed to New Delhi's acting envoy to Islamabad on Friday that the “imprudent launch of the flying object” by India “not only caused damage to civilian property but also put at risk human lives on the ground”.

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The flight path of the flying object launched from India endangered several domestic and international flights within the airspace of Pakistan and could have resulted in a serious aviation accident as well as civilian casualties, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the neighbouring country's government said.

Air Vice Marshall Tariq Zia of the Pakistan Air Force briefed journalists in Islamabad about the incident on Thursday. He said that when Pakistan's air defence systems had picked up the incoming missile launched from India, several commercial airlines were in the area along two active airway routes.

“If you look at the speed and height of the projectile, it was 40,000 feet high, and the airlines were between 35,000 to 42,000 feet. This could have been very detrimental to the safety of passengers,” a PTI report from Islamabad was quoted saying.

The projectile travelled 124 kilometres in three minutes and forty-four seconds after entering the territory of Pakistan

The defence ministry said the Government of India has taken a serious view of the incident and ordered a high-level Court of Enquiry into it. "On March 9, in the course of a routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile," it said in a statement.

"It is learnt that the missile landed in an area of Pakistan. While the incident is deeply regrettable, it is also a matter of relief that there has been no loss of life due to the accident," it added.

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