Diplomat Jayant Khobragade. (Image courtesy: indianbureaucracy.com)
India officially proposed the name Khobragade in June this year. Islamabad’s decision to oppose the visa is reportedly due to Khobragade’s seniority. Pakistan reportedly considers the diplomat too tall to lead the Indian mission, especially after his force was cut in half.
- News18.com New Delhi
- Last update: September 20, 2020 10:48 AM IST
- Edited by: Ahona Sengupta
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More than a month after expelling India’s High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria, Pakistan on Sunday refused to grant a visa to diplomat Jayant Khobragade, who has been appointed as India’s charge d’affaires in Islamabad. The development is expected to further reduce diplomatic ties between the two belligerent neighbors.
Bilateral relations have had a major impact, following India’s decision to revoke Article 370 and bifurcate the Jammu and Kashmir region into two union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh in August 2019, resulting in a almost stagnation of relationships.
India officially proposed the name Khobragade in June this year. Islamabad’s decision to oppose the visa is reportedly due to Khobragade’s seniority, The Times of India reported. Pakistan reportedly considers the diplomat too tall to lead the Indian mission, especially after his force was cut in half.
Diplomatically, Pakistan has no say in who India designates as its diplomats and refusing a visa from a high-level designee is a rarity. New Delhi is likely to respond now with reciprocal action.
An IFS officer from the 1995 batch, Khobragade, who has worked in Pakistan previously, is currently the deputy secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy. Prior to this, he has served as the Ambassador of India to the Kyrgyz Republic. Subsequently, he worked with Indian missions in Russia, Spain, and Kazakhstan.
India recently described Pakistan as an epicenter of terrorism, saying no one deserves an unsolicited human rights conference from Islamabad, which has consistently persecuted its ethnic and religious minorities, including Hindus, Sikhs and Christians. Exercising the right of reply to statements made by Pakistan at the 45th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) here, the Indian representative said that it has become customary for Pakistan to smear India with false narratives and fabricated for their malicious selfish purposes. .
“Neither India nor others deserve this unsolicited conference on human rights from a country that has consistently persecuted its ethnic and religious minorities, is an epicenter of terrorism, has the distinction of providing pensions to people on the sanctions list of the UN and has a Prime Minister who is proud to admit to having trained tens of thousands of terrorists to fight in Jammu and Kashmir, ”said the Indian diplomat.
Meanwhile, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is expected to raise the Jammu and Kashmir issue again in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 25.
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