New Delhi: India’s new Hindu nationalist government has asked a UN body overseeing military activity in divided Kashmir to vacate a government bungalow in the heart of the nation’s capital that it has used rent-free for 40 years.

India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir in its entirety, and India discourages any intervention or criticism in the dispute. The two countries fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over Kashmir.

A UN official confirmed that the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan was asked to vacate the bungalow.

“No reason was given. We were asked to vacate the bungalow,” Maj. Nicholas Diaz said on Friday at the bungalow, which is around the corner from India’s Supreme Court in a coveted part of central Delhi.

A foreign ministry spokesman said the move was in line with efforts to rationalize the UN body’s presence in India.

The decision was “consistent with India’s long-standing view that UNMOGIP has outlived its relevance,” said Syed Akbaruddin, external affairs ministry spokesman.

India maintains that the UN agency had no role to play after India and Pakistan signed a landmark agreement in 1972 on finding a bilateral solution to their dispute over Kashmir.

Diaz said a UN Security Council resolution calls for the body to monitor and observe the border and report violations of a cease-fire agreement between India and Pakistan.

India has never been comfortable with the presence of the UN body overseeing its borders and has often said that no third party can have a role in resolving the dispute over Kashmir.

“We have at best tolerated them because this is one of those byproducts of history,” said Hardeep Singh Puri, a former permanent representative of India to the UN.

“This was an issue of rationalising. I don’t know who had given them this largesse of free accommodation. They were not even paying normal rent for it, let alone market rent,” he said.

The UN group also has an office in Srinagar, the main city in India’s portion of Kashmir, which would continue as it is often the venue for protests by Kashmir separatist groups and human rights activists, officials said.

Diaz said the UN observer group would continue its operations in keeping with its original mandate and has started looking for new office space to rent.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said asking the UN observers to move out was “inconsequential” with regard to Kashmir’s status.

“As long as the Kashmir dispute is not resolved, the UN Security Council mandate remains. These measures are inconsequential and they do not have any impact on the legal status of the dispute,” Aslam told reporters in Islamabad.

The group also has offices in Islamabad and Muzaffarabad, the main city in the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir.