Islamabad: India has twice lodged protests with Pakistan in the past couple of weeks over developments involving the Indian high commission in Islamabad. While the latest protest relates to a drone which was flown over the Indian mission on June 26, hours before the drone attack on an air force base in Jammu, another protest was lodged last week over harassment of Indian diplomats in Islamabad.
The drone flew over the Indian high commission premises while a diplomatic event was underway there. The MEA has asked Pakistan to probe the incident and ensure that such security breaches don’t take place in the future. “We expect Pakistan to investigate the incident and prevent recurrence of such breach of security,” said spokesperson Arindam Bagchi.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry denied the incident claiming that this “propaganda campaign” by India was taking place at a time when “evidence” collected in the Lahore blast of June 23 was “increasingly pointing to external forces with a history of perpetrating state-sponsored terrorism against Pakistan.” The incident follows cases of harassment of Indian diplomats in Islamabad against which India had lodged a protest last week. There was also another case of security breach last month in which strange activities involving civilians were noticed outside the Indian mission.
India had then too officially lodged a protest. These developments have again exposed the vagaries of India’s ties with Pakistan, coming as they do after the two countries approved all pending visas for diplomats last month allowing their respective missions to work at the sanctioned strength. India refrained from linking the Jammu drone attack with Pakistan for now as investigations were still on.
Will retaliate Pak drone attack
India will strongly retaliate at a time and place of its choosing if Pakistan attempts to use drones or indulges in ‘hybrid warfare’ of any kind to target Indian civilian or military assets, chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat warned. Investigative agencies are probing whether the drones used in the terror attack on the Jammu Air Force Station on June 27 were launched from Pakistan or from within the region, said Gen Rawat. “Let them (Pakistan) attempt to do something to damage our assets, and the reaction from our armed forces will be very different. Our armed forces are ready,” he said.
