ISLAMABAD: The government is considering pulling out from India four of its officers posted in Pakistan’s High Commission in New Delhi, days after Indian authorities declared one official persona non grata.
“This is under consideration. A final decision would be taken shortly,” a source at the Foreign Office said on Monday.
The names of the officers — commercial counsellor Syed Furrukh Habib and first secretaries Khadim Hussain, Mudassir Cheema and Shahid Iqbal — were made public after Indian officials released to media a recorded statement of a high commission staffer Mehmood Akhtar, who was expelled from India after being declared persona non grata.
Mr Akhtar told Dawn that he had given the statement under duress.
“They took me to a police station after detaining me where I was forced to read out a written statement provided by them in which the names of the four officers were given and was told to state that they belonged to Pakistan’s intelligence services,” the former high commission official, who returned to Islamabad last week, said.
Mr Akhtar narrated how he was manhandled and picked from outside a zoo while on his way back from Nizamuddin shrine and taken to a Delhi police station, where he was coerced into recording a statement before being expelled from the country.
Indian officials, he said, tortured him to extract the statement and threatened to inject him with heart attack inducing injection if he refused to comply.
The incident has jeopardised the security of the officers and their families besides restricting the normal diplomatic functioning of the high commission.
Pakistan and India have in the past expelled each other’s diplomats and officials due to their tense relationship, but it is one of those rare occasions where one of the countries took the extreme step of revealing the identities of officers.
Pakistani officials believe that India did this on purpose to heighten the tensions.
“We consider it as a serious breach of diplomatic norms. The Indian move has complicated the already tense situation and threatened the lives of our diplomatic staff,” an officer said, adding it was a “deliberate and provocative action”.
Talking about the difficulties being faced by high commission staff, the officer said a son of one of the officers had to be taken back from school after he was ridiculed by his class fellows following this disclosure.
He said public attitude towards high commission staff had stiffened.
One of the family members of the staff earlier talking over the phone to Dawn criticised the Pakistan government for “not proactively and forcefully” responding to the threats to their safety. “It is a matter of life and death for us, but the government’s response has been too meek,” the family member said.
Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2016
