Frosty relations take a weird turn

INDIA: Pakistan’s high commissioner to India has been called home to discuss claims of intimidation and harassment in New Delhi, amid accusations from both sides of mistreatment of diplomats, including bizarre claims of spies ringing doorbells at 3am and then running away.

Sohail Mahmood has returned to Islamabad after 26 incidents were reported by Pakistani envoys in Delhi in the past eight days, including two allegations that their children were approached at school.

India responded by saying its diplomats had recently been abused and vilified in Islamabad.

Muhammad Faisal, the Pakistan foreign office spokesman said Islamabad’s pleas to Indian officials to investigate the incidents had fallen on deaf ears.

‘‘Our high commissioner in New Delhi has been asked to come to Islamabad for consultations,’’ he said.

Both countries have implied that spies – India’s Intelligence Bureau and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – were behind the aggressive acts, using old-fashioned espionage tactics and equally dated playground pranks.

J P Singh, the Indian deputy high commissioner to Pakistan, said his doorbell was rung at 3am last week, and no one was there when he went to answer it.

The Indians, believing that the ISI was to blame, then did the same to Syed Haider Shah, Pakistan’s deputy high commissioner in Delhi, ringing his doorbell at 3am.

Meanwhile, videos posted online and in news reports in Pakistan showed Mahmood’s car being forced to stop in Delhi, as a car pulled in front and two men got out and began taking photographs of its interior.

India said the escalation began when a development under construction for Indian diplomats in Islamabad was raided by the ISI last month and its power and water supplies were cut, The Times of India reported.

– Telegraph Group