By Muhammad Luqman
The already strained relations between India and Pakistan experienced a setback on Wednesday as Pakistan’s foreign office summoned Deputy High Commission of India J.P. Singh and lodged a strong protest over the maltreatment of officers and families of the high commission in New Delhi by the Indian agencies.
“ The High Commission officers and their families continue to face intense harassment, intimidation and outright violence from the Indian state agencies. These have escalated exponentially in the last few days,” Pakistan’s foreign office said on Wednesday.
This deliberate bullying is not confined to a single isolated event, but continues unabated in a series of incidents, especially targeting the children of our officers and staff, the statement added.
. Some of these events , according to foreign office are: On March 7 and 8, the children of the officers of the Mission were harassed while returning from school. Their cars were stopped by unknown persons who threatened the children and filmed them. The protest lodged by our High Commissioner with the Indian Foreign Secretary, instead of ameliorating the situation, was followed by further harassment of the officers of the High Commission, stoppage of provision of gas to the High Commission Residential Complex and threatening of contractors/staff working in the High Commission.
On 9 March 2018, the car of the Naval Adviser was aggressively chased. On the same day, Counselor Political was forcibly evicted from a cab and harassed by unknown persons, who used abusive language, threatened him and filmed the whole incident with impunity.
On 12 March, the technicians working at the Pakistan High Commission, New Delhi were threatened and stopped from working. The same evening our First Secretary was aggressively followed when he left work for his residence.
On Wednesday, the car carrying the school-going children of our Counselor, who were returning from school, was followed by unknown persons on cars and motorcycles harassed, intimidated and their vehicle was blocked. For psychological intimidation, videos and photographs of the children were constantly made for 40 minutes, leaving the children extremely traumatized. They were followed upto their residence.
The drivers of the High Commission were forcibly halted and their mobile phones aggressively switched off to prevent them from contacting anyone.
All these incidents continue unabated despite repeated official protests lodged with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs at the highest level, providing specific details of the culprit’s vehicles Our High Commission has also shared photographs identifying the individuals, who forcibly halted and took pictures of the officer, the statement said.
