India has said it regrets the declaration of a state of emergency in Pakistan and hopes normality will soon be restored there.
The reaction came shortly after Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf declared the emergency on Saturday amid spiralling political turmoil and Islamist violence.
"We regret the difficult times that Pakistan is passing through," Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said in New Delhi.
"We trust that conditions of normalcy will soon return, permitting Pakistan's transition to stability and democracy to continue," Sarna said.
India's junior foreign minister Anand Sharma, meanwhile, said New Delhi wanted democracy to be restored in tension-ridden Pakistan.
"We wish them stability and we look forward to conditions which will facilitate conditions for democracy to be restored in that country," Sharma told reporters.
" India and Pakistan have engaged each other in a meaningful exercise to improve relations and to better understanding and that must improve.
"We want peace and stability in our entire neighbourhood and that's why we were engaging in a constructive dialogue with Pakistan which has shown results," the foreign minister said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meanwhile called Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee for talks to monitor developments in India's neighbour, officials added.
Political parties allied to premier Singh's Congress party-ruled coalition government reacted sharply to the imposition of emergency rule.
"We see this as a premeditated blow aimed at stalling the people's march towards democracy in Pakistan," Communist Party of India leader A.B. Bardhan told AFP .
India's main opposition BJP party prodded New Delhi to react strongly to the developments.
"Musharraf has shown his true colours as a military dictator and this imposition of emergency will not only have an impact in Pakistan but also in the entire South Asian region," BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy warned.
"The Indian government should condemn this act in the strongest of words and ask the international community to put pressure on Musharraf," Rudy added.
The development also triggered concern in India's military establishment, prompting a "state of vigil" alert along a militarised border in disputed Kashmir, government officials said.
"A state of vigil has now been sounded along the LoC (Line of Control) and elsewhere in Kashmir and we are watching the situation very closely," a senior Kashmir military commander told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The two nuclear-armed South Asian rivals, which have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since their 1947 independence, launched talks three years ago in a bid to improve ties.
Both nations have thousands of troops massed along the 440-kilometre (273-mile) disputed border called the LoC in the Himalayan territory.