Two staff of the Indian high commission in Islamabad were “abducted” by Pakistani agencies while out on official work in the Indian mission’s car on Monday morning. After they were interrogated for several hours, reports emerged from Islamabad claiming they had been arrested for a road accident by the police.
The two non-diplomatic staff (names withheld) were finally released in the evening but not before Pakistani authorities claimed to have seized Pakistani Rs 10,000 in fake currency from them. Indian authorities denied that the two men were carrying any fake currency and expressed apprehension that they were held for hours on trumped-up charges only to manufacture a case for declaring them persona non grata (PNG). The Indian staff also had injury marks on their bodies, sources said.
Official sources here didn't rule out the possibility of Pakistan declaring the two Indian staff as PNG for allegedly carrying fake currency on them. Pakistani agencies have been looking to enforce reciprocity, as a source said, after India detained two Pakistani officials on May 31 for espionage and expelled them the next day.
Pakistan’s ISI had subjected Indian officials to aggressive tailing and intimidation since May 31 and India had registered a formal protest accusing Pakistan of violating the Vienna Convention and the 1992 bilateral Code of Conduct for diplomats.
The Indian high commission got the two staff medically examined in the night to ascertain if they received any serious injury during the questioning, which lasted for almost 12 hours. Pakistani media reports claimed that the two were roughed up by a mob which caught them fleeing from the accident spot. The government had earlier expressed fear that Indian staff could be detained on false charges and tortured. There were conflicting reports in Pakistani media about how the accident occurred.
The Indian mission quickly took up the matter with Pakistan’s foreign office in the morning and, later in the day, the MEA called in Pakistan’s charge d'affaires Syed Haider Shah and sought release of the Indian officials and return of their car. The government also asked him to ensure the two officials were not harassed or interrogated.
All Indian staff in Islamabad, and their counterparts here, are generally covered by diplomatic immunity and it’s waived off only in cases of heinous crime. “Pakistan’s charge d'affaires was summoned to the ministry of external affairs and demarched on the reported arrest of two officials of the high commission of India in Islamabad as reported in the Pakistani media,” an official source said. The demarche also said the responsibility for the safety and security of the diplomatic personnel concerned lay squarely with Pakistani authorities.
“Pakistan was asked to return the two officials along with the official car to the high commission immediately,” the source said.
