India Launches Land Version of BrahMos Amid Tension on Pakistan Border

The Indian Army conducted the second launch of its advanced land attack version of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile in consecutive days amid intense pressure on the Narendra Modi government to retaliate against Pakistan for allegedly beheading two soldiers.

New Delhi (Sputnik) — The Army had test-fired the long-range tactical weapon from the same location on Tuesday.

"South Western Command's Corps ‘Strike One' successfully carried out the firing of the advanced BrahMos Block III land attack cruise missile system in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands on the 3rd of May 2017 for the second consecutive day. The successive launches reinforce the formidable weapon's precision strike capability," an Indian Army statement said.

These successful firings of the supersonic cruise missile were carried out in full operational land-to-land configurations from Mobile Autonomous Launchers (MAL) at its full-range. "Meeting all flight parameters in a copybook manner while conducting high level and complex maneuvers, the multi-role missile successfully hit the land-based target with desired precision, in both the trials demonstrating its accuracy of less than one meter," statement added.

This is the fifth consecutive time when the Block-III version of BrahMos LACM has been successfully launched and hit the land-based target in "top-attack" mode, an incredible feat not achieved by any other weapon system of its genre.

#WATCH: Army test fired Brahmos Block- III missile from Andaman & Nicobar Islands, yesterday. (Source: Indian Army) pic.twitter.com/kWAoVCIKq2

— ANI (@ANI_news) May 3, 2017

​The Indian Army was the first land force in the world to deploy the BrahMos in 2007 and later it has raised several regiments of this formidable weapon.

Experts, however, do not link the consecutive tests with the recent tension with Pakistan. "It has nothing to do with tension at western border. Indian Army conducts various tests of to check their own readiness of their own crews. These tests will be done in future as well because it will become part of some more regiments," retired Brigadier Rumel Dahiya, a defense analyst, said.

In the latest case of cross-border firing and alleged mutilation, the Indian Army on Monday said two of its soldiers were attacked and killed in a gruesome manner by Pakistani forces in Krishna Ghati sector on Monday. The Pakistani director general of military operations, however, refused any such charge and sought incontrovertible evidence on the alleged mutilations.