‘Want to make BrahMos so that...’

Lucknow: India wants to manufacture BrahMos missiles not to attack any country but so that no other country has the audacity to cast an evil eye on it, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Sunday, while stressing the need to maintain nuclear deterrence. “The BrahMos missile and other weapons and defence equipment we are manufacturing are not to attack any other country. It has never been the character of India to attack any other country or grab even an inch of land of any country,” Singh said. “We want to manufacture Brah- Mos on Indian soil so that no country has the audacity to cast an evil eye on India,” he said, referring to the missile that is capable of carrying a nuke warhead.“India should have nuclear deterrence so that no country in the world can attack us, and we have shown this,” Singh said.

Rajnath laid the foundation stone of the Defence Technologies and Test Centre and the BrahMos Manufacturing Centre here, along with UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, during the day. “There is a neighbouring country. It got separated from India sometime back. I don’t know why its intentions vis-a-vis India are always bad. It committed acts of terrorism in Uri and Pulwama,” he said, referring to Pakistan. “And then our PM took a decision, and we went to the soil of that country and destroyed terrorist hideouts, and when there was a need for airstrikes, we did that successfully,” Singh said. —(PTI)