Pakistan accuses India of being behind uptick in violence

Islamabad, Nov 14 (efe-epa).- Pakistan on Saturday accused India of financing and supporting terrorist groups, which it said was behind a recent upsurge in violence along the disputed Kashmir border area, where an exchange of fire yesterday killed at least 12.

The border clash erupted at the Line of Control, the de facto border in the restive Kashmir region. Another 30 were injured in the violence.

Pakistan and India, both nuclear powers, blamed each other for the clashes, which come at a time of heightened tension after New Delhi’s controversial decision to revoke Indian Kashmir’s special autonomous status in August.

“The recent upsurge in the violence in Pakistan is a direct consequence of India’s intensified engagement with all kinds of terrorists, sub-nationalists and dissidents,” Babar Iftikhar, the director of the Pakistan Army’s communications office, told a televised press conference Saturday.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, tweeted: “For too long India has gotten away with state-sponsored terrorism and cultivating seeds of hatred across the border.

 “Today we presented irrefutable evidence to the world on Indian state’s insatiable appetite for terrorism, violence & instability.”

Qureshi alleged the existence of a cell under the control of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi which is charged with promoting attacks against projects being constructed as part of the China-Pakistan economic corridor.

Iftikhar accused New Delhi of supporting the main Taliban group in Pakistan, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, and separatist groups from the province of Balochistan, in southwest Pakistan.

Terrorist activity in Pakistan has been on the decline in the last few years but there has been a small uptick recently.

In one of the most recent attacks, on 27 October, a bomb explosion at a religious school in Peshawar killed eight people and injured 110 more.