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Militant camps still exist in Pakistan: India

By Iftikhar Gilani

NEW DELHI: India claimed on Thursday that militant training camps still exist in Pakistan and Kashmir, as well as in Bangladesh along its eastern border.

“Pakistan has so far not taken any significant action to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism, such as launching pads, training camps, communications and funding”, which the Indian government has “continuously stressed in its interaction with Pakistan at all levels”, Minister of State for External Affairs Minister Rao Inderjit Singh told the Rajya Sabha (Upper House).

“The government has always clearly stated that the India-Pakistan dialogue process can only be conducted in a terrorism-free atmosphere, and is critically dependent on the fulfilment of the January 6, 2004 commitment by President Musharraf (on the sidelines of the SAARC summit) not to allow territory under Paksitan’s control to be used for terrorism,” Singh said.

He said that the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) director general had handed over a list of 172 camps of Indian insurgent groups on Bangladeshi soil to the director general of the Bangladesh Rifles two months ago.

The issue has frequently been taken up with the Bangladesh government at all levels, and “we have been assured by the Bangladeshi government that it will not allow the use of its territory for activities inimical to India”, the minister told the Upper House.

However, the minister denied any knowledge about the existence of terrorist training camps in Nepalese territory.

The house was assured that India has not lowered its guard after the earthquake.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha (Lower House) that 10 infiltration attempts were foiled by the Indian Army along the Line of Control (LoC) since the October 8 quake. He said that 25 terrorists had been killed in these attempts.

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