There has been no official confirmation on if Kirana Hills serves as a storehouse for Pakistan’s nuclear assets or not.
NEW DELHI: From the afternoon of May 11, social media began circulating a narrative that ultimately may turn out to be false, alleging that India, through its Air Force, had struck Kirana Hills, which supposedly houses Pakistan’s nuclear assets.
The Indian Air Force officially denied this rumour the following day, but by then, the fake news had already spread, amplified by news channels and WhatsApp groups, painting a picture of India’s military prowess. The narrative suggested that this was one of the reasons Pakistan had reportedly requested India to stop its military actions.
Despite the Indian Air Force’s denial, the report continued to circulate until the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog, confirmed to journalists, including The Sunday Guardian, that there had been no radiation leak or release from any nuclear facility in Pakistan. This confirmation was “based on information available to the IAEA.” In fact, satellite imagery did not corroborate any damage to Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure.
A very important fact that emerged was that India and Pakistan’s Non-Nuclear Aggression Agreement explicitly prohibits attacks on nuclear facilities, making such an action diplomatically and strategically improbable. Not that Pakistan always abides by the agreements it has signed with India, with Shimla being a glaring example.
Interestingly, there has been no official confirmation that Kirana Hills serves as a storehouse for Pakistan’s nuclear assets. India’s post-1998 nuclear doctrine prioritises limited conventional operations to avoid escalating conflicts to nuclear thresholds. Any reckless strike, as the rumours claimed occurred at Kirana, would severely undermine India’s reputation for precision and responsibility, as demonstrated in Operation Sindoor.
Thus, it is believed that this false narrative was forwarded to advance several hostile objectives.
Firstly, it may have been designed to bolster Pakistan’s nuclear brinkmanship, providing a “nuclear holocaust shield” to justify its sponsorship of terrorism while deflecting accountability.
Secondly, it created an opening for Western powers, particularly the United States, to intervene in South Asia. Influential think tanks and scholars have historically exploited nuclear instability narratives to justify international mediation.
The narrative also undermines India’s economic rise by deterring foreign investment, aligning with the strategic interests of Pakistan and China. Domestically, amplifying such claims inadvertently invites international scrutiny, harming India’s global standing.
Western think tanks have long shaped narratives of South Asian nuclear instability, often framing the region as a volatile hotspot needing external oversight. For instance, the Belfer Center’s 2008 publication Ten Years of Instability in a Nuclear South Asia argued that nuclear weapons enabled Pakistan’s terrorism and provoked India, thus justifying Western mediation, as seen during the 1999 Kargil War. Brookings’ Stephen Cohen (1998–2002) portrayed India’s nuclear ambitions as prestige-driven, warning of escalation risks, which supported U.S. de-escalation efforts during the 2001–2002 standoff.
Carnegie’s 2022 Striking Asymmetries emphasised the India–Pakistan–China nuclear dynamics, advocating for risk reduction frameworks aligned with Western arms control priorities. The United States Institute of Peace (2022) highlighted U.S. diplomacy during the 2019 India–Pakistan crisis, reinforcing South Asia’s image as a flashpoint requiring American intervention.
These narratives, often tied to Western geopolitical interests, downplay India’s strategic restraint while amplifying Pakistan’s narrative of victimhood. The Kirana Hills rumour likely aimed to discredit Operation Sindoor by portraying India’s military actions as destabilising. This episode highlights the power of correct information in shaping geopolitical outcomes.