Pakistan on Monday questioned the presence of nine Indian consulates in a small country like Afghanistan and linked the armed resistance of the late Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti against the government to foreign support.

It was not possible for Bugti to manufacture missiles or rockets in Balochistan and these weapons came from somewhere, state minister for information Tariq Azeem said while addressing a media conference in Islamabad.

Pakistani officials have repeatedly alleged that Afghanistan-based Indian consulates had been involved in de-stabilising their territory. The issue also came up for discussion in the last round of Pakistan-India interior secretaries-level talks in Islamabad in June this year with Pakistani officials claiming to have produced evidence about the involvement of the Indian consulates in deteriorating the law and order in Balochistan.

"One would like to know why India needs to have nine consulates in a small country like Afghanistan, where it did not even have big trade and economic stakes," Azeem said, adding that in the United States and the United Kingdom, where millions of Indians were residing and doing businesses, New Delhi has just eight consulates -- four each in the two countries.