NEW DELHI, Feb 8: India on Saturday ordered the expulsion of Pakistan’s acting High Commissioner Jaleel Abbas Jilani and four other officials, giving them 48 hours to leave and their families a week, as a fresh round of diplomatic bludgeoning touched a new low by their own ordinary standards.

“It is all timed to make it difficult for us to be with our families for Eid,” said a sombre Jilani, whose wife and children will follow him a few days later but within the stiff one-week deadline.

Responding to Pakistan’s tit-for-tat expulsion of the Indian Charge d’Affaires Sudhir Vyas with four officials, New Delhi predictably however claimed the high moral ground, even as it insisted that it did not want to downgrade diplomatic ties between the two countries, a move being voiced in some hardline quarters.

Foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna briefed reporters earlier in the morning about the expulsion of Jilani and his companions over allegations of indulging in “activities incompatible with their status.”

He returned shortly afterwards with the news of Pakistan’s retaliation, only to accuse Islamabad of pursuing the path of “confrontation, compulsive hostility and brinksmanship”.

“We see it as a pure and simple act of unmerited retaliation,” Sarna said. “We are not surprised. We expected it. You cannot expect Pakistan to behave in a moderate and measured fashion. We have taken a decision based on solid evidence.”

Sarna was referring to the fact that Jilani has been named in the FIR registered after the arrest on Thursday of Anjum Zamrooda Habib, chief of Muslim Khawateen Markaz, and Delhi-based spokesman of the Kashmir’s All Parties Hurriyat Conference Shabir Dar.

Habib was reported to have confessed before the anti-terrorism special POTA judge S N Dhingra on Friday that Rs3.07 lakh recovered from her was handed over to her by the Pakistan High Commission to be passed on to the amalgam Chairman Abdul Gani Bhat as a “nazrana” (token money).

Police recovered Rs2 lakh from the Hurriyat’s office and arrested Dar after Habib alleged that he was also receiving money from the High Commission.

“Unfortunately, Pakistan instead of acknowledging that its CDA in India was involved in clearly unacceptable activities in broad breach of diplomatic norms, has chosen this path of confrontation, compulsive hostility and brinkmanship,” he said.

Sarna said India would readily give a visa to Jilani’s replacement so that the diplomatic representation is not downgraded.

Jilani flatly denied the charges and said they were of a piece with the weeks of stepped up harassment of Pakistani officials by Indian sleuths.

He said the charges appeared to flow from the exigencies of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party which needs continued hostility with Pakistan to succeed in the arriving state elections to be followed by general elections due next year.

The officials asked to leave with Jilani are Habibur Rehman, Aftab Ahmed, Abdul Razak and Mohd Nazir, Sarna said.

Both New Delhi and Islamabad have accused each other’s staff members of spying and have often resorted to physical intimidation in dealing with diplomats.

In May 2002, Jilani was summoned by the Ministry of External Affairs and handed a formal order asking Pakistan’s High Commissioner Ashraf Jehangir Qazi to leave the country.

Jilani’s suggestion of a domestic trigger for the diplomatic row appeared to have caught the opposition Congress party seeking a difficult middle path as few seem to have a credible antidote to the BJP’s ultra-nationalist stance.

“If the allegation (that Jilani had paid money to arrested Hurriyat activists) is correct, then it is very serious,” said Congress spokesman and lawyer Abhishek Singhvi. “Such allegations are based on definite facts which lie with the government. And if the allegations are correct then there is no other option before the government but to expel the diplomat.”

However, he said that he expected that the government has taken such steps based on “exclusive facts and information” available to it.

To questions whether Pakistan high commission should be closed, Singhvi said this was for the government to decide. “We believe that all efforts should be made to keep open all channels of communication”.

Asked about Jilani’s claim that the government’s decision was taken with an eye on assembly election in four states, he expressed the hope that the decision was based on facts.