India on Monday voiced concern over the likelihood of Pakistan's nuclear assets falling into the hands of jihadi elements and sought a 'different approach' based on 'new global consensus' to deal with such a situation.
"The nature of the dangers which nuclear weapons pose has dramatically intensified with the growing risk that such weapons may be acquired by terrorists or jihadi groups who could threaten to use, or worse, even utilise such weapons to carry out attacks against targets which may be located anywhere in the world," Prime Minister's Special Envoy Shyam Saran said.
"The mounting concern over the likelihood that in a situation of chaos, Pakistan's nuclear assets may fall into the hands of jihadi elements, fired by the ideology of extremism and mindless violence, underscores how real this danger has become," he said.
Noting that the danger posed by proliferation of nuclear weapons to non-state actors is of a 'different and more threatening dimension' than that from the proliferation to additional states, he said, "India has to be deeply concerned about the danger it faces from this new and growing threat".
While talking about proliferation, Saran referred to the clandestine 'nuclear super-market' of Pakistan's disgraced scientist A Q Khan.
"If such a clandestine market continues, as it does even today, the danger of nuclear explosives or fissile material and technical know-how enabling the manufacture of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of non-state actors, such as jihadi groups, will continue to haunt our world," he said.
He said the recent experience indicates that the NPT and technology-denial regimes may delay the emergence of new nuclear weapon states but "they are unlikely to prevent it. How do you threaten nuclear retaliation against such actors?"
To deal with the threat, the former foreign secretary said, "A different approach is required, based on new global consensus which in fact would be more effective in dealing with proliferation in all its aspects".
Emphasising that India understands the danger from nuclear weapons as it has suffered from clandestine proliferation in its neighbourhood, he said, "New Delhi is perhaps the best placed to fashion a global consensus on achieving nuclear disarmament as an urgent objective, not only because of the mass destruction character of these weapons".
He said the elimination of clandestine, worldwide market in nuclear knowhow, can be achieved only by working on India's proposal that non-nuclear weapon states should commit themselves to never develop or acquire nuclear weapons in return for a legal and time-bound commitment by nuclear weapon states to eliminate their arsenals.