Pakistan often harass Indian diplomats to hide its own inadequacy: Former diplomat
Jun 04, 2020
New Delhi [India], June 5 : Reacting to the incident of chasing of the vehicle of India's Charge d'affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia in Islamabad, former diplomat Anil Wadhwa said that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) often tries to harass Indian diplomats to hide its own inadequacy.
"Pakistan's ISI has been indulging in actions of harassment of Indian diplomats on a number of occasions in the past in retaliation of hiding their own inadequacies and their actions that they take on Indian soil," Wadhwa told ANI.
Wadhwa said that this incident has occurred in response to Pakistanis diplomats, who were caught red-handed in New Delhi while indulging in espionage, and later declared persona non-grata.
"Whenever a station likes this arise the Pakistani establishment and the ISI start harassing Indian diplomats in retaliation. And in the past as well, deputy high commissioner and now acting high commissioner Gaurav Ahluwalia has been tailed by a rider on bikes. Very often Pakistani ISI post security personnel outside the houses of an Indian diplomat, pressuring the guards posted at the embassy to divulge the details about their movements," he added.
Defence Expert PK Sehgal added that Pakistan often acts in a manner which is against the Geneva Convention.
"No country in the world will accept such acts and the government of India should strongly respond to such acts. Pakistan is clearly a pariah state and often indulges in activities which are downright despicable and are not acceptable as per Vienna Convention," he added.
"Now, this is a very cheap response to what has happened in New Delhi. Their spies of ISI were posted in the embassy of Pakistan in India. And they have been exposed to the whole world. To counter that they have been doing such cheap activities," said another Defence Expert SB Asthana.
"All over the world, diplomats understand this language. With this action, they are only demeaning themselves. Our diplomats are strong and they are using such tactics," Asthana added.
"Pakistani has always behaved very badly with the Indian diplomatic community in Islamabad. The manner in which they have treated our Charge d'affaires is in very poor taste. India, however, does not react in that manner. Though I presume that MEA will give a very strong response to Pakistan," said Defence Expert Dhruv Katoch.
In March, the Indian High Commission in Pakistan sent a strong protest note to the foreign ministry in Islamabad protesting against the continuing harassment of its officers and staff by Pakistani agencies.
According to the note, India cited 13 instances of harassment in the month of March itself and asked Pakistan to stop such incidents and investigate the matter.
India had asked Pakistani authorities to "investigate these incidents urgently and instruct the relevant agencies to ensure that similar incidents do not recur".
It stated that such incidents of harassment were in clear violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 and that the safety and security of Indian High Commission officers, staff members, and their families is the responsibility of the Pakistan government.
