Pakistan raises troops’ strength on border, blames India

Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, has said his country has sent extra troops to its border with India due to rising tensions. Islamabad had been "unsettled" by pressure on its eastern border, Hasan told London-based Financial Times.

He charged that assertiveness by New Delhi was sapping his country's ability to fight Pakistani Taliban militants. "He (Hasan) said Islamabad had been unsettled by pressure on its eastern border created by the building of military cantonments close to the sensitive frontier over the past year," the newspaper reported.

According to Pakistan's top officials, rising tensions with India allegedly prevented it from expanding its military campaign against Taliban militants on its western border, it said. "The government has had to send some troops down there because we don't want to leave ourselves exposed," Hasan said.

"This is taking away from our defence capabilities on the Afghan border. We really wish the international community would intervene, but nobody has said anything to the Indians," he said. The report quoted Pakistani officials as saying that the number of troops the army had deployed was 'modest' and declined to give details, but added that "the reinforcements are estimated to be in the hundreds"

- Asian Tribune -