India expels four Pakistan officials: Attempt to avoid dialogue, says Jilani
By Jawed Naqvi
NEW DELHI, Jan 22: India on Wednesday ordered the expulsion of four officials of the Pakistan High Commission as tense relations between the two countries plummeted further over a raging diplomatic row.
Pakistan’s acting high commissioner Jalil Abbas Jilani described the move as a deliberate attempt by New Delhi to vitiate the atmosphere.
Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna told reporters the four officials, including two diplomats, had been declared persona non grata and that they were ordered to be removed from the country within 48 hours, over charges of alleged spying.
The official language explaining the charge said they had indulged in activities incompatible with their diplomatic status.
The officials are Counsellor Mansoor Saeed Sheikh, First Secretary Mian Mohammad Esif, and staffers Muhammad Tasneem Khan and Sher Muhammad.
The latest expulsions would further deplete the high commission, already working for more than a year at half its strength after India first, and then Pakistan, decided to reduce each other’s presence following the December 2001 incident at the Indian parliament.
The most likely explanation for the worsening relations, according to Pakistan’s acting High Commissioner Jilani is that India is facing a fresh round of state elections this year, seen as crucial for India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s future.
“It is a very unfortunate decision,” Jilani told Dawn after Wednesday’s expulsion orders.
“Clearly it is an attempt to further vitiate the already tense relations between the two countries,” said the official who had a key role in stitching together the Agra summit in July 2001.
Jilani said the officials being expelled were performing their duties “strictly in accordance with the well established diplomatic norms.”
He said India’s decision was taken without assigning any specific reasons.
“Pakistan has always tried to lower tensions with India. Unfortunately India has not reciprocated the positive gestures from our side,” Jilani said.
He said there was a clear pattern in what India is doing over the last couple of years, apparently implying that the July 2001 Agra summit too was deliberately scuttled.
“It is a deliberate attempt to avoid a meaningful and sincere dialogue with Pakistan to resolve all outstanding issues, including the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir.”
Pakistani officials did not squarely deny India’s charge that its own envoy in Islamabad, Charge d’ Affaires Sudhir Vyas was harassed by Pakistani sleuths. They implicitly though not overtly conceded there was a more intensive and unusual, in the case of the head of missions, surveillance of Vyas.
“We are officially denying it, but India is the one who has always taken the first step,” one official said, citing the Pakistan mission’s letter of protest as early as Jan 7 over what it described as the intrusive surveillance of Jilani, a point missed by much of the reporting of the incident in the Indian media.
Jilani, however, felt relieved that the “tailgating” of his car had eased over the last three days, suggesting that things had at least notionally improved.
Moreover, he was invited by President APJ Abdul Kalam to a reception on Wednesday for international parliamentarians. An international parliamentarians’ meet began in New Delhi on Wednesday at which Pakistan has not been invited.
“Pakistan’s parliamentarians should have been invited and they would have come,” Jilani said.
He said the current phase of diplomatic tit for tat was part of measures hinted at by the Indian media which had recently predicted further diplomatic moves against Pakistan soon.
“India is obviously trying to achieve advantage, making India-Pakistan relations as an extension of domestic politics,” Jilani said.
He cited a recent statement by the BJP saying that the Gujarat experiment would be repeated in the future elections.
The “experiment” is a reference to a rabidly anti-Pakistan tirade by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi during the BJP’s campaign in the state elections there.
NEW DELHI, Jan 22: India on Wednesday ordered the expulsion of four officials of the Pakistan High Commission as tense relations between the two countries plummeted further over a raging diplomatic row.
