Missile misfire: What is India-Pakistan missile testing notification pact?

People work around what Pakistani security sources say is the remains of a missile fired into Pakistan from India, near Mian Channu, Pakistan, March 9, 2022. Picture taken March 9, 2022. Credit: Pakistani security sources/Handout via Reuters

India said on Friday it had accidentally fired a missile into Pakistan this week because of a "technical malfunction" during routine maintenance, giving its version of events after Pakistan summoned India's envoy to protest.

Pakistani officials said the missile was unarmed and had crashed near the country's eastern city of Mian Channu, about 500 km (310 miles) from the capital Islamabad.

One senior Pakistani security official told Reuters that it was possibly a BrahMos missile – a nuclear-capable, land-attack cruise missile jointly developed by Russia and India.

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So, is there an agreement between the two countries on missile testing notification?

The two nuclear neighbour nations, on October 3, 2005, signed a pact on pre-notification of flight testing of ballistic missiles.

The agreement was signed by India’s then Foreign-Secretary, Shyam Saran and Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan to "adopt appropriate measures aimed at preventing misunderstandings and misinterpretations and promoting a stable environment of peace and security between the two countries".

According to the pact, both the countries are supposed to send each other an ‘advance notification’.

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The notification should be "no less than three days in advance of the commencement of a five-day launch window within which it intends to undertake flight tests of any land or sea-launched, surface-to-surface ballistic missile".

Each country also has to ensure that the test launch sites don’t fall within 40 km and the impact area isn’t within 75 km of the International Boundary or the Line of Control along the side of the country undertaking the test.

While not giving much information about the reasons behind the incident, the Indian Ministry of Defence said in a three-paragraph statement, "On 9 March 2022, in the course of a routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile.”

Meanwhile, Pakistan has said that it was not satisfied with India's "simplistic explanation" on the "accidental firing" of a missile that landed in Pakistan's Punjab province and demanded a joint probe to accurately establish the facts surrounding the incident.

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