Pakistan, India Expel Diplomats

INDIA AND Pakistan have expelled one diplomat from each others missions in New Delhi and Islamabad after trading charges that their activities were incompatible with each others diplomatic status.

While Pakistan asked India to withdraw S.K. Chaudhury, attache in Indian mission in Islamabad on October six, New Delhi in an apparent retaliatory action on the same evening requested for a similar pullout of Murad Baloch, attache in the Pakistan high commission here.

The announcement on the latest round of expulsions within six weeks after a similar incident involving two staff members each came in the form of a response by an external affairs ministry spokesman confirming that New Delhi had asked Islamabad for the withdrawal of its diplomat here on October 6.

The spokesman, however, rejected as entirely false the charges that the Indian diplomat had indulged in activities in compatible with his diplomatic status.

Details of how much time was being given to the diplomats to leave their places of posting was not given by the spokesman.

Indian high commission sources in Islamabad denied that Chaudhury was indulging in any activity incompatible to his diplomatic status.

Chaudhury, who has been asked to leave the country within a week, was carrying out his normal diplomatic work, the sources added.