M A I N   N E W S

India protests to Pakistan
Staffer was ‘forced’ to sign confession

NEW DELHI, Jan 17 (PTI) — India today strongly condemned assault on a staff member of the Indian High Commission (IHC) in Islamabad yesterday and rejected as “unfounded and baseless” Pakistan’s allegation that the official was carrying a remote-controlled explosive and Rs 5,000 when he was taken into custody.

“It is an obvious case of intimidation and abduction and outside the realm of civilised behaviour,” a Foreign Office spokesman told reporters here.

New Delhi had firmly told Islamabad that it was Pakistan’s responsibility to ensure the safety and security of all staffers of the Indian mission.

A verbal note handed over to the Pakistan Foreign Office by Acting Indian High Commissioner Sudhir Vyas in Islamabad said the high commission strongly condemned such “despicable acts”.

It was pointed out that the treatment meted out to P. Moses, who was abducted and assaulted by Pakistani intelligence operatives, was in “gross violation” of all norms and conventions of diplomatic interaction, provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and Code of Conduct for Treatment of Diplomatic Personnel in India and Pakistan signed by the two countries in August, 1992.

Responding to questions, the spokesman said no attempt had been made by Islamabad to identify the so-called ‘contact’ of Moses and neither was the staffer questioned about who he was to contact or which officer of the Indian mission had, as alleged, handed over the packets to him.

On the allegation that Moses was carrying a note written in Urdu, it was pointed out that he could neither speak nor write in that language.

Moses, a clerk in the high commission, was made to sign “confessional” statements in their custody before

being released at 2 a.m. on Sunday a report from Islamabad said.

Mr Vyas told PTI that Moses, a Christian, was returning from Fatima Church in Sector F8 in a taxi when he alighted at a pay-phone booth to call his son in India on the occasion of Pongal.

“Moses was stopped at a police picket and kidnapped by the intelligence operatives and taken to Kosar police station,” Mr Vyas said.

The clerk was picked up at 4.45 p.m. yesterday and was forced to sign statements under duress that he was carrying a remote-controlled bomb and Rs 5,000 to an unknown person in the Rose and Jasmine Garden.

While in illegal custody, Mr Vyas said: “Threats were made on his personal safety, wife and family amounting to physical and psychological torture”.

“The Pakistan Government did not consider it necessary to inform the high commission, even though Moses declared at the time of his abduction that he was a staff member of the Indian High Commission,” Mr Vyas said.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan alleged that India was sponsoring terrorism within its territory, building its case on the nabbing of the Indian High Commission staffer.

Acting Indian High Commissioner Sudhir Vyas was summoned to the Foreign Office and “a strong protest was lodged with him regarding the involvement of an official of the Indian High Commission in terrorist activities,” a Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman said in a statement here.

The statement accused P Moses, of “carrying a remote control device for explosion for delivery to a contact in Islamabad at Raja Bazaar in Rawalpindi on January 26.”