On a night in May 2025, deep in the desert stretches of Pakistan’s Sargodha region, something strange happened.
Satellite images captured a plume; social media showed a mushroom cloud explosion following an eerie sound of a missile hit.
Radio intercepts picked up frantic chatter. There were no news reports, no official confirmations, just an unsettling silence. But in certain circles — strategic analysts, intelligence agencies, and defense watchers — one name surfaced again after decades: Kirana Hills.
The ghosts of Pakistan’s covert nuclear ambitions had stirred once more. And if rumors are true, India, possibly using a precision BrahMos strike, may have just exorcised them — silently, but decisively.
This is the story of Kirana Hills: the nuclear danger that once was, the airstrike that may have happened, and the future India must prepare for if history dares repeat itself.
Flashback To The Shadows: Kirana Hills In The 1980s
Kirana Hills. A desolate, rocky outcrop in Pakistan’s Punjab province. To the untrained eye, nothing more than an expanse of barren land. But in the late 1980s, it became the clandestine crucible of Pakistan’s nuclear dreams.
As India reeled from the Pokhran-I test of 1974, Pakistan, under A.Q. Khan’s notorious program, raced to build a deterrent.
Without the luxury of large underground test sites, Pakistani scientists turned to “cold tests” — simulations of nuclear explosions without the fission reaction. Kirana Hills offered concealment, ruggedness, and proximity to Sargodha’s air base for security.
Between 1983 and 1990, dozens of such cold tests were reportedly carried out there under heavy secrecy. Western intelligence, Indian RAW, and even Soviet satellites caught glimpses but refrained from public disclosures. It was the height of Cold War diplomacy; everyone played a dangerous game.
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Kirana Hills became synonymous with Pakistan’s first nuclear rattlesnake — unseen, but undeniably real.
2025: The Hills Stir Again
Fast forward to 2025.
Reports began surfacing of unusual Pakistani military activity near the Kirana complex.
- Reinforced bunkers being refurbished.
- Unusual movement of engineering corps and strategic command units.
- Suspicious civilian blackouts in nearby towns.
Speculation brewed: was Pakistan attempting to revive, repurpose, or perhaps conceal nuclear infrastructure at Kirana Hills again?
Enter India.
According to defense grapevine and selective satellite data leaks, a precision airstrike — likely using a BrahMos Block III cruise missile, equipped for deep penetration and precise targeting — might have been launched.
The objective? A suspected underground storage or developmental site — possibly connected either to small tactical nuclear weapons or the refurbishment of older fissile material storage.
There was no war, but a lot of media frenzy.
Just an eerie silence that told seasoned observers: something significant had been erased from the map.

The Specter Of Nuclear Fallout
Destroying a nuclear-related facility isn’t the same as hitting a tank formation.
Had there been enriched uranium or plutonium stocks at the target site, the danger would have multiplied exponentially.
Fallout Risk 1:
Explosion-induced dispersion of radioactive material into the atmosphere. Not a full-blown fission explosion, but deadly enough to cause local contamination and even spread across borders through wind patterns.
Fallout Risk 2:
Groundwater contamination. The Kirana region, while arid, still feeds into underground aquifers connected to Punjab’s agricultural heartlands.
Fallout Risk 3:
Geopolitical contamination. Striking a nuclear facility — even one clandestinely operating — carries enormous risks of escalation, retaliation, and diplomatic maelstroms.
Fortunately—or through precise Indian targeting—if the BrahMos strike happened, it avoided triggering any visible radioactive cloud.
A testament to the surgical precision that India’s missile forces are steadily mastering.
But it leaves behind an uncomfortable question: what if even one storage unit had ruptured?

Strategic Calculus: Why Kirana? Why Now?
In geopolitics, every action broadcasts a signal louder than the blast itself.
India’s rumored strike at Kirana Hills — if true — sent several powerful messages:
- Message to Pakistan: No location, no matter how historically protected, is immune.
- Message to China: Your nuclear umbrella over proxies won’t shield clandestine buildup.
- Message to the World: India is evolving beyond defensive postures; it now practices selective preemption.
More subtly, it signals India’s growing mastery over “non-escalatory strategic strikes” — actions that remove threats without triggering full-scale war.
This is the future of warfare: shadows, deniability, and devastating precision.
A Dangerous Future: What Kirana Hints At
The events at Kirana Hills, if confirmed, don’t just close a chapter.
They open a chilling new one.
- Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Miniaturization
Pakistan has been vocal about developing battlefield nukes — small yield weapons like the Nasr missile system.
If Kirana was involved in refreshing these programs, it means the subcontinent may soon face “nuclear weapons usable at the tactical level” — dangerous because they lower the threshold for use.
India would be forced to rethink No First Use and evolve Counterforce doctrines: the ability to preemptively strike nuclear assets before they are launched.
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Future of Precision Strikes
BrahMos today.
Tomorrow: hypersonic missiles, AI-guided swarm drones armed with micro-munitions, electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) to neutralize nuclear silos without direct hits.
The Kirana model — precise, silent, effective — could become standard operating procedure for the Indian military.
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Civilian Risks
A major takeaway:
The future battlefield won’t be neatly divided between “combatants” and “non-combatants.”
A small mistake in targeting could unleash chemical, radiological, or biological hazards affecting millions — far beyond traditional warzones.
Thus, India’s investments in NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) defense — from sensor drones to protective gear for civilians — must become a national priority.
The Psychological Warfare Angle
Sometimes, victory is achieved not by destruction but by uncertainty.
Today, every Pakistani strategic planner must wonder:
- “How did they find it?”
- “Where else are we vulnerable?”
- “Will there be another strike?”
Fear — silent, creeping, corrosive — is often the deadliest weapon.
By mastering such deep strike ambiguity, India quietly injects psychological fatigue into adversary decision-making.
It’s warfare without war. And it’s devastating.
Lessons India Must Heed
If Kirana Hills was indeed struck, India must not grow complacent. History teaches that no advantage remains unchallenged for long.
India must:
- Accelerate space-based ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) — to spot threats even before they sprout.
- Invest in stealth drone swarms capable of autonomous targeting in denied airspaces.
- Harden civilian infrastructure against radiological threats — an often neglected area.
- Build layered ballistic and cruise missile defense, because a cornered adversary may lash out unpredictably.
- Continue refining doctrine for “First Window Neutralization” — hitting emerging nuclear threats before they become irreversible.
Conclusion: Kirana’s Ghosts & Tomorrow’s Wars
The dust over Kirana Hills may have settled, but the tremors it has triggered in strategic circles will echo for years.
A nuclear threat was born there decades ago.
Today, it was perhaps cauterized in silence.
But the specter of tactical nukes, asymmetric nuclear threats, and silent surgical wars is very much alive.
If the whispers are true, India has not just neutralized a threat — it has demonstrated a terrifying new capability:
To kill nuclear ambitions in the womb. Quietly. Precisely. Without triggering the apocalypse.
And that, in a future where the first shot may decide everything, is a weapon more potent than any nuclear bomb.
- Group Captain MJ Augustine Vinod (Retd), VSM, is a former Mirage 2000 fighter pilot, air accident investigator, and co-founder of AMOS Aerospace. He writes on emerging defense technologies, AI in warfare, and India’s aviation future.
- This is an Opinion Article. Views Personal Of The Author
- He tweets at @mjavinod