India protests harassment of its diplomats in Pakistan

Smita Sharma
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 14 

India has protested “harassment” of its diplomats serving at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

In a “note verbale” issued through the Indian mission in Islamabad to the Pakistan Foreign Ministry on January 10, India objected to “attempts to hack Facebook accounts of two officers and aggressive surveillance of Indian High Commissioner and Deputy High Commissioner while attending a wedding party at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad on December 4”, sources said to the Tribune.

Pakistan’s hackers are believed to have illegally used personal details of two relatives of the Indian officials to hack into their accounts. Sources also said fishing attempts to hack into the officials email and also the Indian mission website led to delay in clearing Pakistani visa applications.

Allegations of illegal surveillance of diplomats, including India’s envoy to Pakistan, has hit the already fragile ties between the two countries.

Sources said tensions have been on the rise for five months now, ever since nearly 40 per cent of the mission’s staff moved into new residential quarters. The source of the newest spat they say is a gas pipeline that’s under repairs at the new quarters. Repair and maintenance of the gas pipeline has been contracted to an agency called Sui since 2015.

“Architects and consultants are not being allowed by Pakistani authorities to come inside the new compound. The Indian officials there are without their families. This adds to their problems.  These obstructions are against diplomatic norms,” said a source. 

On December 10 last year, there was break-in attempt an Indian diplomat’s house. In another instance, an Indian diplomatic team faced questioning on a road in Peshawar on December 21.

A series of diplomatic spats in the first few months of 2018 was finally settled when the two parties agreed to follow the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 and Bilateral Code of Conduct, 1992.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated incident, sources at the Ministry of External Affairs sources said Delhi Police called an official of the Pakistan High Commission for questioning after the person reportedly had an argument with a woman at a Delhi market. The official gave a written apology to Delhi Police and was let off, sources said.