Pakistan on Saturday said that India had not officially conveyed its plans to seal the border between the two countries by December 2018, Dawn reported. Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said they did not have any details on the matter, despite remarks from Indian Home Affairs Minister Rajnath Singh, promising to put in place a "Border Security Grid".
New Delhi has been talking about establishing a peaceful neighbourhood, but its actions are contradicting those words, Zakaria said. He also alleged that India had not shared any evidence with Islamabad on the 2007 Samjhauta Express blasts case and accused Indian intelligence agencies, such as the Research & Analysis Wing, of working with groups such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Abhinav Bharat, some of whose members were arrested in connection with the 2006 Malegaon blasts.
Zakaria added that India was "desperate and making every effort to deflect attention" from the Kashmir issue. "We have been asking for the international community's intervention in this regard, and we will keep on asking for this," he said. The spokesperson also called for an investigation into the unrest in the Kashmir Valley, which began after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed on July 8.
The Pakistani official's remarks come even as India presses on with efforts to diplomatically isolate the country following the September 18 Uri attack in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 19 Indian Army soldiers. Ties between India and Pakistan have worsened since the incident, with the September 29 surgical strikes by the Indian Army being interpreted as a retaliation to that attack. New Delhi also backed out November's South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Islamabad, citing the increase of cross-border militancy as the reason.
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