Iftikhar Khan Chaudhry, a 29-year-old nuclear research officer, said in a raft of media interviews on Wednesday that Pakistan literally went ballistic after its intelligence reports indicated -- erroneously as it turned out -- that India may attack Pakistani nuclear installations, possibly with Israeli connivance.

Islamabad then geared up its nuclear-tipped Ghauri missiles placed alongside the border for a first strike. US analysts and officials cast doubts on Khan's account, suggesting that he was a low-level scientist trying to seek asylum on the basis of dubious claims, but other experts said even if his revelations are partially true, it presents a frightening scenario of nuclear brinkmanship by Pakistan.

Khan spent all ofWednesday at his lawyer's office in New York providing back-to-back interviews with network television and reporters, sometimes meeting them in shifts. A small-built mustachioed man, what he said painted an alarming scene of nuclear adventurism by Pakistan.

Khan said he was present at a meeting on April 25 of Pakistani political, military and scientific bosses at a government estate in Khushab, which decided on a pre-emptive nuclear strike on India. Held amid great tension, the meeting was attended among others by Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan, Army Chief Jahangir Karamat, and nuclear scientist A Q Khan. Iftikhar Khan Chaudhry attended it as an assistant to Altaf Hussein, who is said to be the second-in-command at the Pakistan Atomic Commission.

According to Khan, the meeting discussed intelligence data that indicated ``beyond doubt'' that India was on the verge of attacking Pakistani nuclear establishment, much of which is located around Islamabad. The data was based on inputs from Pakistani radarexperts who said Israeli reconnaissance planes were hovering on the border helping India monitor Pakistani installations.

General Karamat then cleared a plan to strike New Delhi and other targets within two days, pending Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's approval.``They had a strong impression that the Indians would strike first. We wouldn't be in a position to counter-attack, so (the decision was) let's strike first,'' Khan said in one of the many interviews he gave through the day.

Khan did not explain why and how the attack plan was called off. Indian, Israeli and US officials have since said that Pakistan's fears of an Indo-Israeli attack on its nuclear installations were spurious and unfounded. Significantly, all this happened well before the Indian nuclear tests on May 11. Khan said he was distraught by the possibility of death and destruction in a nuclear war. He and four other junior colleagues wrote a letter to Altaf Hussein, urging Pakistan to refrain from attack and threatening to go public withtheir objections. Khan produced a copy of that letter.

``Usage of nuclear weapons and atomic bombs is very, very dangerous and destructive to the human being... I believe it is my moral duty to make efforts as I can so to avoid the usage of nuclear weapons... In case of no change of decision, we will go to public,'' Khan wrote in the letter to Hussein which was signed by four fellow scientists.

But he was dismissed the next day and threatened with death. Khan said his wife had been kidnapped by Pakistani intelligence forces and is still being held. He went underground and managed to escape to Canada before surfacing in New York. He did not speak about his other colleagues, who are believed to be in England.

Khan's lawyer Michael Wildes, who specialises in political asylum cases and who recently handled the defection of a Saudi Arabian diplomat, said his client is currently cooperating with US intelligence ``in an effort to avoid what he believes is a strong possibility of a nuclear war in SouthAsia.''

Pakistani officials however challenged Khan's claims with some denouncing him as an impostor and others saying he was a low-level employee who would not have had access to any information. US officials too tried to downplay the sensational revelations.

``We have no information beyond what has been reported in the media that can confirm or deny this gentleman's story. We have no comment on his claims about Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme,'' State Department spokesman James Rubin said.