Indian media portraying Robin Raphel as 'friend of Pak versus enemy of India', says Pak columnist

Pakistani columnist Raza Rumi said on Monday that the Indian media has turned American newspaper reports about veteran State Department diplomat and longtime Pakistani expert Robin Raphel into a whole narrative where she is being viewed as a friend of Pakistan versus an enemy of India.

Rumi said that he was baffled at the allegations on Robin Raphel, who is under federal investigation as part of a counter intelligence probe and has had her security clearances withdrawn.

Christine Fair, Assistant Professor, Center for Peace and Security Studies, Georgetown University and Pakistan Expert also said she was "flabbergasted" by how Raphel was characterized in Indian media.

"I am very flabbergasted by the ways in which several of the Indian writers and television have really characterized her role," said Fair.

Both Fair and Rumi emphasized that Raphel was merely executing the U.S. policies as a diplomat.

"This idea that she is somehow like the mastermind of the U.S. policy towards South-Asia is absolutely preposterous and I can't say anymore clearly, she executed U.S. policy," Fair asserted.

"Raphel was an advocate of constructive engagement with the country and she argues like a trained diplomat with 40 years of career asking for a constructive engagement not a destructive or any kind of a punitive engagement," added Rumi.

Raphel, a fixture in Washington's diplomatic and think-tank circles, has been placed on administrative leave since last month, and her contract with the State Department had been allowed to expire this week.

The longtime diplomat was among the U.S. government's most senior advisers on Pakistan and South Asian issues. She is a former assistant secretary of state for South Asia and a former ambassador to Tunisia.

At the time of the FBI search of her house, she had retired from the Foreign Service but was working for the State Department on renewable, limited contracts that depended in part on her security clearances.