United Nations: India has squarely blamed Pakistan for prevailing tensions between the two countries, asserting that cross border terrorism and failure of Islamabad to dismantle terrorist infrastructure are responsible for the present situation in South Asia.

"Other underlying causes include a policy of compulsive hostility (by Pakistan), the absence of democratic governance and unwillingness of a military establishment to subject itself to civilian control," India's United Nations Ambassador V K Nambiar told the 191member General Assembly.

Only when these underlying causes are addressed that the commonalities between the nation building interests of the people of the sub-continent can be "rediscovered and problem areas in the relationship between the countries addressed and resolved", he said.

"We do not deny the severity of the political tensions that were generated in the sub-continent as a result of the mindless acts of terrorism perpetrated against important symbols of Indian Democracy and nationhood," he said.

The measures adopted by India, he stressed, were "deliberate but restrained as would befit a responsible Democracy accountable to its people".

PTI