The Khobragade name had been officially proposed in June this year. In the same month, India had also further reduced diplomatic ties with Pakistan by calling for a 50 percent reduction in mission strength.
The government views Pakistan’s rejection of Khobragade as an attempt to exact revenge on India for its decision to cut ties and also as a sign of frustration that Islamabad’s information war on the Kashmir issue did not it has managed to gain a lot of international traction.
Pakistan’s objection is apparently related to Khobragade’s seniority, as he believes that he is too important to lead the Indian mission when his strength has been cut in half and at a time when there is hardly any bilateral engagement between the 2 countries.
Pak uses a drone to drop weapons at J & K’s Rajouri; 3 LeT terrorists arrested
Pakistan dumped weapons and some Indian currency cash using a drone in the Rajouri district of J&K, DGP Dilbag Singh said on Saturday, announcing the arrest of 3 LeT terrorists who had picked up the shipment near the LoC. Singh said the greatest success was achieved on Friday night, following a well-coordinated joint operation by police and 38 Rashtriya rifles.
However, India believes that Pakistan should not dictate the appointment of Indian diplomats in Islamabad and is likely to reciprocate in due course. It is rare for either country to reject the appointment of a diplomat of this level.
IFS officer from the 1995 batch, Khobragade is currently serving as an assistant secretary in the Department of Atomic Energy. In the past, he served as the Indian ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic before serving as a junior in Indian missions in Russia, Spain, and Kazakhstan. Khobragade has worked in Pakistan before, but his visa rejection is unlikely to have anything to do with his previous stint in Islamabad. Since the two countries withdrew their high commissioners last year, their missions have been led by the charge d’affaires.
India believes that Pakistan has not been able to accept the revocation of the special status of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir and its bifurcation into two union territories.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is likely to raise the issue again in his UNGA speech on September 25. The government criticized Pakistan this week at the UN Human Rights Council for creating “false and fabricated” narratives to smear India.
“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 takes pride in admitting to having trained tens of thousands of terrorists to fight in Jammu and Kashmir, “said Pawan Badhe, First Secretary of the Permanent Mission of India in Geneva.
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