India on Thursday strongly denied allegations in the media that a research centre in Dehradun may have violated UN sanctions by training North Korean experts who went on to occupy important positions in secretive military programmes of the reclusive communist nation.

The allegations came up in an Al Jazeera article, citing a UN Security Council report, that the Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP) has trained at least 30 North Koreans in the last nearly 20 years of its existence.

The trained North Koreans included “Paek Chang-Ho, who was designated for his role in the launch of the Unha-3 rocket” on December 12, 2012, according to the UN Security Council report of February-March 2016. Paek is reported to be the vice-director of Scientific Research and Development Department of North Korea’s National Aerospace Development Administration.