PTI

Kolkata, Mar 9: Pakistan's possession of nuclear weapons prevented India from attacking that country after the terror strikes in Mumbai and the attack on Parliament, former army chief Gen Shankar Roychowdhury has said.

"Do nuclear weapons deter? Of course, they do. Pakistan's nuclear weapons deterred India from attacking that country after the Mumbai strikes," he said at a seminar on 'Nuclear Risk Reduction and Conflict Resolve' in Kolkata.

“It was due to Pakistan's possession of nuclear weapons that India stopped short of a military retaliation following the attack on Parliament in 2001,” Roychowdhury said.

Stressing the need for nuclear disarmament, he said in 1988 the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had proposed a 20-year plan for it.

Commissioner in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC) Lt Gen V R Raghavan said Pakistan's nuclear weapons were in safe hands.

"By all indications, Pakistan's nuclear weapons are in safe hands and under tight control. But nobody can say what will happen if the system breaks down. There is concern in the West about whether the system in Pakistan can be sustained only through aid," Raghavan said on Saturday.