By Mashal Khan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday expressed deep concerns over the smuggling of enriched uranium in India and said it's a worrying situation for the world community.

Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Asim Iftikhar while reacting to reports about the smuggling of highly enriched uranium and other fissile materials from Indian land to other countries and there are some nuclear incidents too, he said this has been a longstanding problem, which is recurrently coming to the attention of the international community,.

“As you would recall several incidents in recent past, in which unsafeguarded nuclear material, including uranium, maybe from the black market or something, was apprehended in different parts of India,” he said.

Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Islamabad had publicly expressed its deep concern because “this is not normal, this should not be happening.”

 “There is some degree of lack of controls, adequate controls out there on this matter,” he added.

 “The doubts about adequate controls being in place with regard to the nuclear materials or the nuclear program or the strategic program, they have really increased in recent months, you recall also the incident of March of what they called “accidental firing” of the missile, totally unexplainable and this was a major, major incident that exposed the shortfalls in the Indian system.”

In March, Indian Defense Minister acknowledged that "in the course of a routine maintenance, a technical malfunctioning led to the accidental firing of a missile" that landed in Mian Chunnu town of northeastern Punjab province of Pakistan, some 250 kilometers from the Indian border on March 9.

Later, Pakistan demanded a joint probe into the "accidental" firing of an Indian missile to "accurately establish" the facts surrounding the incident, however, New Delhi is still silent.

“We raised that matter forcefully with the international community, and there was growing recognition and concern about this problem,” the Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman said.