New Delhi, March 5
India has asked Pakistan to withdraw within a week two of its diplomatic staff for their involvement in espionage unearthed last week, the Ministry of External Affairs announced today.

Mr Aman Rashid, head of Chancery of Pakistan High Commission here, was summoned to the Foreign Office yesterday and handed a note verbale in this connection by Director of Pakistan Desk in MEA’s IPA (Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan) division, Ruchi Ghanshyam.

MEA spokesperson Nirupama Rao told reporters here today that the note verbale had asked Pakistan to withdraw two of its diplomatic staff, Sultan Mehmood and Gulzarin, for indulging in undesirable activities — a diplomatic euphemism for espionage. The two were caught red handed last weekend while accepting classified documents from their Indian agent who had been arrested.

Ms Rao disclosed that, as had been Pakistan’s wont in the past, after the espionage case was unearthed last weekend, Islamabad had already started a tit-for-tat process. As part of this strategy, several incidents of harassment of members of Indian diplomatic mission in Islamabad had taken place last weekend.

An Indian Consular and his wife were harassed in Islamabad. In another incident, Ms Rao said, a bus carrying some members of Indian diplomatic mission in Islamabad, was forced to stop by Pakistani operatives and when the driver got down to enquire what was happening, he was abused and threatened.