Pak. expels Indian embassy staffer

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, AUG. 26. In what is seen as a `tit-for-tat action', Pakistan today ordered the expulsion of a staffer in the Indian High Commission on the ground that his activities are ``incompatible with his official status''.

The action came within 48 hours after India expelled a staffer in the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi on similar charges. The diplomatic expression `activities incompatible with official status' is an euphemism for spying.

The Indian Deputy High Commissioner, Mr. Sudhir Vyas, was summoned to the Foreign Office here this morning and told that the Indian High Commission staffer in the Visa section, Mr. P.C. Dey, should leave Pakistan by September 2. India had asked the Pakistani embassy staffer, Mr. Malik Mohammad Rafiq, to leave the country by August 31.

Mr. Vyas reportedly told the Foreign Office that there was no substance in the charges against Mr. Dey and complained that the charges had been trumped up as a retaliation for the action against the staffer in Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi.

On Friday, Pakistan had accused India of expelling 16 officials of its High Commission in New Delhi in the last five years and said there have been over 80 incidents of harassment, beating and trespass of residence of officials serving in the High Commission in breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 and the accord between the two countries in 1992.

Pakistan had summoned Mr. Vyas on Friday and lodged a strong protest against what it termed as trespass into the residence of the Air Advisor in the High Commission by a group of persons claiming to be officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Reacting to the Pakistan statement, a senior Indian diplomat said here that if ``we tabulate the number of cases of expulsion and harassment'' in the Islamabad High Commission they would far exceed the number claimed by Pakistan.

`Unwarranted'

UNI reports from New Delhi:

India described as ``unwarranted and unjustified'' the expulsion by Pakistan of an Indian High Commission official in Islamabad.

An external affairs ministry spokesman said the expulsion was ``clearly a retaliatory action and entirely unwarranted and unjustified.''

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