The Pakistani military Saturday dismissed as "totally incorrect" newspaper reports of a large-scale build-up of troops on the border with bitter regional rival and neighbor India.
A spokesman for the Inter-Services Public Relations Directorate (ISPR) said the reports were "totally incorrect and concocted."
"Troops are busy in routine training within their respective units and their training areas.
"No unusual movement or activity has taken place," the spokesman said in a statement.
It "is unfortunate" that two newspapers carried the news item despite "a firm denial from the ISPR spokesman earlier."
"Making sensational stories on such issues may create panic and lead to serious consequences," the spokesman cautioned.
The English-language The News and Urdu daily Jang, both owned by the same group, said around nine army divisions had moved close to the border with India for massive exercises.
The troop movements started Thursday and the process was still continuing late Friday, The News said.
Pakistan and India are locked in a tense dispute along their disputed border in the Himalayan state of Kashmir, which is divided between the two countries and claimed by both.
They came dangerously close to all-out war last year when the Indian army fought back Pakistan-supported Islamic fighters occupying key peaks on its side.
The 10-week Kargil crisis was defused when the fighters withdrew after US pressure on Pakistan.
The South Asian neighbors, which both conducted nuclear tests in May 1998, have fought three wars since their independence in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.
India has refused to enter into peace talks with the regime of Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in October last year, ousting prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
New Delhi accuses Islamabad of sponsoring cross-border terrorism in in Kashmir, where a separatist Muslim insurgency has claimed more than 34,000 lives since its eruption in 1989.
Pakistan denies the Indian charge, but gives open political and moral support for the rebellion, calling it a legitimate struggle by indigenous Kashmiris for self determination -- ISLAMABAD (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
