With limited technical competency in the rocketry and missile fields, Pakistan is an unlikely candidate in making an IRBM, say Ministry of Defence (MoD) sources. Islamabad could not have graduated from making short range ballistic missiles to making an IRBM in such a short span of time and with such severely restricted resources, said the MoD sources.

With IRBMs, Pakistan is getting into the realm of advanced guidance systems and re-entry technologies. It has yet to demonstrate an ability to manage such high technologies, said the MoD sources.

Above all that, the procedure for testing missiles requires an international warning to be issued to shipping lines andcommercial airlines weeks in advance. No such warning was issued by Islamabad. Since the only direction that Pakistan could possibly have tested Ghauri is into the Arabian Sea, crossing amongst the worlds busiest sea and air routes, a warning would have to be issued, said civil aviation sources.

A land test is also ruled out for similar reasons, and also that of safety concerns in case a missile goes awry. China is the only country known to have conducted land tests.

Pakistan's missile development agency, the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) is also based at Kahuta, the seat of Islamabad's nuclear programme. Delhi-based specialists believe that SUPARCO has conducted the engine firing of an IRBM class rocket. ``It is most likely a ground test of a reconfigured rocket which is being claimed as the success of Ghauri,'' said a rocket specialist.

The testing programme for its Hatf series missiles has been extremely frugal and infrequent. ``Their data base for the missile programme hasto be too limited for them to be able to make any headway in genuinely independent designs and development,'' said a scientist with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The needle of suspicion over Pakistan's missile programme points primarily towards China, and to a lesser degree North Korea. While most of the Hatf series missiles displayed bear a striking resemblance to Chinese models, it is the longer range ones that expose the Beijing hand.

What, however, is of deep concern to South Block officials is the timing of the Pakistani claim. It comes at a time when the United States and China are engaged in discussions for exchange in space technologies, and barely a week before New Delhi and Washington begin their first high-level talks since a new government took over in India. ``By claiming a successful test which in actual fact has yet to happen, Islamabad is hoping to queer the pitch for our upcoming talks with the US,'' declared a South Block official. Ghauri rebut Pak claimson missile

Pakistan would deploy Ghauri along the Indian border, the country's largest circulating Urdu daily Jung said here today quoting sources in the Pakistani defence.

Ghauri would be deployed at nearly six places along the Indian border from Sialkot to Karachi ``to target major Indian cities and nuclear installations'', Jung said. The paper added that apart from targeting New Delhi, other major Indian cities and nuclear installations like Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Trombay, Nagpur, Jullundhur and Jaisalmer would also be within striking range of Ghauri.