The row between India and Pakistan over the treatment of each other’s officials has escalated.
Pakistani foreign office summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner JP Singh to the foreign office in Islamabad on Tuesday night and lodged a protest over what it called the maltreatment being meted out to the officials and families of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi.
Islamabad emphasised that under the Vienna Convention, the safety and the security of Pakistani diplomats and their families were the responsibility of New Delhi, said an official release from the Pakistan foreign office, copies of which were also made available to the Indian media.
“The total apathy and failure of the Indian Government to put a halt to these despicable incidents, sparing not even young children, indicates both a lack of capacity to protect foreign diplomats posted in India or a more reprehensible, complicit unwillingness to do so,’’ it said.
With bilateral relations at new low, Indian officials say the latest incidents of harassment and intimidation of diplomats was initiated by Pakistan with Indian diplomats posted in Islamabad facing a series of incidents of harassment for more than a year, which peaked in February
Last month, there were intrusions into the Indian diplomatic residential complex under construction in Islamabad. The main contractor at the chancery was told to end his services. Water and electricity supply to the high commission was also cut off. Indian High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria had met Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua last month to lodge a formal complaint but nothing was done in the matter.
Meanwhile, Pakistan claimed that the officers, staff and the families of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi continue to face intense harassment, intimidation and outright violence from the Indian state agencies. These have escalated exponentially in the last few days.
This deliberate bullying was not confined to a single isolated event, but continued unabated in a series of incidents, especially targeting the children of officers and staff, it added.
Islamabad also went on to list some of these events, including the one that, it said, took place on Tuesday in which the car carrying the school-going children of a Counselor, who were returning from school, was followed by unknown persons on cars and motorcycles. They were harassed, intimidated and their vehicle was blocked, Pakistan said.
For psychological intimidation, videos and photographs of the children were constantly made for 40 minutes, leaving the children extremely traumatised. They were followed up to their residence.
Additionally, the drivers of the High Commission were forcibly halted and their mobile phones aggressively switched off to prevent them from contacting anyone, Pakistan added.