Officials of Indian High Commission in Pakistan arrested, later released after protest by New Delhi

Two officials of the High Commission of India in Islamabad were detained by the police, on Monday in the capital of Pakistan for more than 10 hours early on Monday – allegedly for injuring a pedestrian in a road mishap and possessing fake currencies.

The two officials – D Brahma and P Selvadhas – were released in the evening after New Delhi issued a démarche to Pakistan’s acting envoy to India, Syed Haider Shah, and demanded their return along with the official car of the High Commission of India in Islamabad. Shah, the Charge d'Affaires of High Commission of Pakistan in New Delhi, was summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in South Block, where the senior diplomats served him the démarche.

Brahma and Selvadhas suffered injuries. The Islamabad Secretariat police station claimed that they had been assaulted by local people who stopped them from fleeing the scene of the mishap. They were also accused of possessing fake currencies worth Pakistani Rupees Ten Thousand.

Sources in New Delhi said that the allegations against them appeared to be concocted and the whole episode seemed to be orchestrated by the military-security establishment of Pakistan.

The incident comes a fortnight after India expelled two consular officials of the High Commission of Pakistan in New Delhi after they were found to be involved in espionage.

New Delhi on June 4 lodged a complaint with the Pakistan Government after its diplomats in Islamabad were harassed by the agents of the neighbouring country’s military spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Brahma and Selvadhas went out of the High Commission of India in Islamabad for official work in the morning and went missing. The High Commission immediately took up the matter with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan Government, sources in New Delhi said.

Pakistani media reports identified the two Indian officials as Selvadas P and D Brahma, claiming that they had tried to flee after the BMW car they were driving hit a pedestrian on a road and injured him. They were caught by some local people and handed over to police, who later found that they were officials of the High Commission of India in Islamabad, according to reports on the newspapers published in the neighbouring country.

New Delhi conveyed to Pakistan’s acting envoy to India that the two officials should not be interrogated or harassed. The responsibility for the safety and security of the concerned diplomatic personnel lay squarely with the Pakistani Government, the senior MEA officials in New Delhi told Shah.

Hours after Shah was summoned to the South Block, the two officials were released and returned to the High Commission of India in Islamabad.

The ISI agents also surrounded the residential complex of the officials of the High Commission of India in the diplomatic enclave of the capital of Pakistan – apparently, in a bid to intimidate them, sources said in New Delhi.

The harassment of India’s diplomats and consular officials in Pakistan appeared to be retaliation by the ISI after New Delhi expelled its two undercover agents.

Abid Hussain and Muhammad Tahir, both ISI agents, had been living in New Delhi under the guise of consular officials of the High Commission of Pakistan in the capital of India. India had on May 31 declared both Hussain and Tahir as “Persona Non-Grata” and asked Pakistan to withdraw them from India within 24 hours. They had left New Delhi early in the morning on June 1 and crossed over to Pakistan through the Attari-Wagah border between India and its western neighbour in the evening.