India takes up harassment of its diplomats in Islamabad with Pakistan

India has taken up the harassment of its diplomats in Islamabad with Pakistan and has sent note-verbales to the Pakistani foreign ministry.

Increased harassment in the form of intimidation, intrusive surveillance and even physical threats have been noticed against Indian diplomats by Pakistani security agencies since the 31st of May 2020. Two such instances came to light–one of 5th June and another of 6th June.

On 6th June, India’s chargé d’affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia was followed closely during his morning walks and on the same day, when he had visited a market, he was tailed by motorbikes aggressively. Such kind of aggressive and extraordinary levels of harassment continued even when he visited shops the same day.

The same thing happened the next day on 7th June, when an Indian high commission official visited a nearby market, he was tailed by vehicles aggressively.

In one instance, a local employee of the Indian high commission was aggressively interrogated when he came out from Indian diplomats residential complex.

While raising the matter of harassment of Indians official, New Delhi highlighted that the current pattern of harassment is a clear violation of the Vienna Convention of diplomatic relations of 1961 and code of conduct for the treatment of diplomatic/consular personnel in India and Pakistan signed in 1992.

The harassment of Indian officials is not new but comes days after India expelled two Pakistani high commission officials who were caught red-handed in espionage activity in the Delhi.