Pak calls its envoy home, India calls it routine
Upping the ante, Pakistan on Thursday said it has decided to call back its High Commissioner in India Sohail Mahmood for consultations after the repeated incidence of “harassment” of its diplomatic staff in New Delhi.
Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Faisal said that the Indian government failed to take notice of the increasing incidents of intimidation of Pakistani diplomats, their families and staffers by its intelligence agencies.
“Our High Commissioner in New Delhi has been asked to come to Islamabad for consultations,” he said.
On Tuesday, the Foreign Office had summoned India’s Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh over the alleged harassment of its officials and their families in New Delhi.
The Pakistan Foreign Ministry claimed that the staff and their families have been facing “harassment, intimidation and outright violence” from Indian state agencies in recent weeks.
Faisal on Thursday alleged that this deliberate continuing bullying was not confined to a single isolated event and “continues unabated despite repeated official protests lodged with the Indian High Commission here, and also with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs at the highest (level).”
He said the Pakistan High Commission shared with the External Affairs Ministry photographs identifying the individuals, who forcibly halted and took pictures of the officers but regrettably no positive action was taken by the Indian side so far.
He claimed that in the latest incident, Indian officials stopped the car of the deputy high commissioner for 40 minutes and harassed the occupants of the vehicle.
“Pakistan will go to any limit to ensure the safety of the staff of (its) high commission in India,” he said.
“The Pakistan High Commissioner has been called for consultations and it is normal,” MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said on Thursday.
Noting that our high commission in Islamabad is facing a “litany of issues”, he said that “we have taken them up through established mechanism”.
“We want Pakistan to resolve the issues being faced by our staff and ensure their safety,” he said.