NEW DELHI, July 28: India can match Pakistan's fire-power and is capable of intercepting Islamabad's latest acquisition the HATF-III missiles, Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav told Parliament today.

Faced with a barrage of questions in the Lok Sabha relating to the country's defence preparedness, Yadav said government was fully aware of Pakistan's efforts to build up its missile capability through the acquisition of M-11 missiles from China and the development of the HATF-III missiles with Chinese technological assistance.

The Defence Minister also wanted to remind Pakistan that the 800-km range of the HAFT missiles could threaten only parts of India while Indian missiles could cover entire Pakistan.

Replying to supplementaries, Yadav said India was keen to establish peace and understanding with Pakistan and hoped that the ongoing Indo-Pak talks would help remove irritants.

The Government are also aware of Pakistan's allegation of deployment of Prithvi missile near border. All the developments relating to acquisition and deployment of missiles by Pakistan are constantly monitored.

Asserting that any attempt of ``misadventure'' on the part of India's adversaries would be dealt with appropriately, the Defence Minister said the government was assigning ``top priority'' to its defence programmes.

The Defence Minister came under fire from the Bharatiya Janata Party MPs who wanted to know what government proposed to do to tackle the increased incidents of firing across the border from Pakistan.

Rita Verma (BJP) said Army jawans in Siachen were facing gunfire every day and were operating under extremely stressful conditions. Accusing the Defence Ministry of indifference to their hardship, she said the soldiers in Siachen had told visiting MPs that they were short of snow scooters and spare parts for equipment.

What steps would India take if Pakistan refused to recognise the international border between the two countries, K L Sharma of the BJP wanted to know. Was it true that Pakistan stepped up its firing from across the border at the time of harvest, another MP queried. What was the progress made on fencing the border, Mangat Ram Sharma, Congress MP from Jammu asked?The Defence Minister's replies were brief. There was no resource crunch as far as spending in Siachen was concerned. ``We will meet all defence requirements, whatever the cost,'' he asserted.

India is hoping that the ongoing India-Pakistan dialogue would yield results and incidents of firing from across the border would cease.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.