Pakistan Set to Expel Two Indian Diplomats in Retaliatory Move

New Delhi: In a tit-for-tit measure, Pakistan has accused two diplomats working at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad of being involved in activities to “destabilise Pakistan by facilitating and funding terrorism” paving the way for their eventual expulsion from the country.

Pakistani news channel Geo TV reported that Commercial Counselor Rajesh Kumar Agnihotri and press officer Balbir Singh were “reportedly running a network of individuals involved in subversive activities in Pakistan.” Agnihotri is working for RAW and Singh for IB, the report said, adding that more names of “spies posing as diplomats” at the Indian High Commission would be revealed soon.The retaliatory accusations come on the same day that two top intelligence officials working at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi returned home after a spy caught by Delhi Police last week blew the cover off an elaborate espionage ring operating out of the mission.

Top sources told News18 that seven Pakistan diplomats left India with their families on Wednesday.
Trade counsellor Syed Farruq Habib and press officer Mudassir Cheema went home by the 3.30 pm New Delhi-Lahore flight on Tuesday. Habib and Cheema were among the four intelligence operatives named by Akhtar in his confession that was videotaped. He had also named Farruq’s deputy Khadim Hussain and Major Shahid Iqbal.

Syed Farruq Habib was functioning as the station chief of ISI in the high commission, Indian intelligence sources told News18.
Akhtar, who was nabbed by Delhi Police outside the Delhi Zoo on Friday, had returned to Pakistan on Saturday after he was declared a “persona non grata”.

Immediately after Akhtar was detained, Pakistan had expelled Surjeet Singh, an Indian employee working at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, for “conduct not in accordance with his diplomatic status”. Singh returned to India on Saturday.

A Geo TV report quoted Pakistani sources as alleging that Surjeet Singh had possessed a fake card of a mobile phone company under the name ‘Abdul Hafeez’.