Pakistan's High Commissioner to India Sohail Mehmood arrived on Friday for consultations with high authorities amid continued harassment of diplomats and their family members by Indian state agencies in New Delhi. Sohail Mehmood arrived in Lahore on Friday and will be holding a meeting with Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and other senior officials of the Foreign Office to update them on the continued harassment being meted out to diplomatic staff and other officials of Pakistan's High Commission in New Delhi and their family members.
Sources said the government is expected to articulate a course of action, particularly with regard to the family members of the diplomats and other officials of the High Commission in New Delhi, after taking input from the High Commissioner. Another video that appeared yesterday showed that a Pakistan diplomat along with his wife and children was subjected to harassment by the personnel of Indian state agencies in New Delhi's diplomatic area.
The video shows that one of the bikers started filming the Pakistan diplomat and his family members, including two children, through his cell phone to harass them. In that video, a common Indian citizen can be seen approaching the Pakistani diplomat asking him to call police when he noticed continued harassment of the diplomat and his family members.
The same cars and motorbikes of personnel of intelligence agencies can be seen blocking the car of the same diplomat on the Africa Avenue in New Delhi. On Thursday, Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal told his weekly media briefing that High Commissioner Sohail Mehmood has been recalled from India for consultations amid constant incidents of harassment of diplomats and their family members by Indian state agencies.
"We will take all possible steps for the safety and security of our people in India, which is paramount to us," he said, adding that Pakistan has raised the issue of constant incidents of harassment of its diplomats, their families as well as schoolgoing children at the highest level with the Indian side. "This deliberate bullying, which continues, is not confined to a single isolated event and continues unabated despite repeated official protests lodged with the Indian High Commission here, and also with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs at the highest level," he said.
He said that Pakistan's High Commission also shared photographs identifying the individuals, who forcibly halted and took pictures of the officers, with the Indian External Affairs Ministry. "Regrettably no positive action has been taken by the Indian side so far. The total apathy and failure of the Indian government to put a halt to these despicable incidents, sparing not even young children, indicates both a lack of capacity to protect foreign diplomats posted in India and a more reprehensible, complicit unwillingness to do so," he said.
Under the Vienna Convention, he added that the safety and the security of Pakistani diplomats and their families is the responsibility of the Indian government.
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