Posted on 05/18/2002 1:04:06 PM PDT by mdittmar
On a day in which Prime Minister Vajpayee was briefed by the three Service chiefs about possible ‘‘military options’’ in the aftermath of the Kaluchak incident, India chose as its opening gambit the expulsion of Pakistani high commissioner Ashraf Jehangir Qazi.
Emerging from a two-hour meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) on Saturday morning, external affairs minister Jaswant Singh said, ‘‘The high commissioner of Pakistan will be required to return to Islamabad for the sake of parity of representation.’’
Joint secretary in the external affairs ministry Arun Kumar Singh later communicated this decision to the Pakistani deputy high commissioner Jaleel Abbas Jilani. ‘‘We have indicated that the recall of the high commissioner should be completed within a week,’’ said the MEA spokesperson.
India had withdrawn its high commissioner to Pakistan after the December 13 Parliament attack. Subsequently, it banned overflights by Pakistani aircraft and cut the strength of the two countries’ high commissions in Islamabad and Delhi by half.
While Pakistan had refused to recall Qazi, it announced a ‘‘tit-for-tat’’ policy for the other measures.
Qazi, who was due to retire in April, had been granted an indefinite extension by Islamabad. He was preparing to leave for Pakistan on Saturday for a vacation but will now remain here till his final departure on May 25.
Pakistani diplomats said that judging from the pattern of India’s punitive measures after December 13 — when the high commissioner’s recall was followed a week later with other sanctions — the next Indian step could well be to order a further reduction in the size of the high commission staff.
Asked whether this was in the offing, Jaswant said the only change as of now related to the high commissioner. ‘‘As and when the CCS considers it necessary, it will meet to review the situation,’’ he said.
The fact that the ‘military option’ is still wide open was reinforced by an extensive briefing of the CCS by the three Service chiefs, Gen S Padmanabhan, Air Chief Marshal S Krishnaswamy and Adm Madhvendra Singh, in the ‘‘Operations Room’’ of the defence ministry.
The discussions focused on the ground situation, operational preparedness and military options available against the backdrop of the mobilisation of troops along the border.
The MEA spokesperson said the ‘‘significant’’ decision on Qazi was taken because there had been ‘‘no diminution’’ in cross-border terror ‘‘aided and abetted’’ by Pakistan. Pakistani diplomats rejected the charge, saying as recently as the third week of March Vajpayee told the Rajya Sabha ‘‘some positive effects’’ of Musharraf’s crackdown on jihadis were visible in Kashmir.
‘‘If since then, terrorists have stepped up their attacks,’’ a diplomat said, ‘‘Pakistan is as much a victim as India. We had the church attack in Islamabad, the suicide bombing in Karachi. And you have had Kaluchak’’.
The diplomat denied that the three terrorists shot dead at Kaluchak were sent by Pakistan. ‘‘They may be Pakistanis — though the addresses given by India do not exist — (but the government) has nothing to do with them’’, he claimed.
The stepped-up exchange of fire across the LoC and the IB in the past few days was reviewed by the CCS.
Jaswant Singh said Pakistan had provoked India into launching a ‘‘fire assault’’ in the Rajouri sector. Indian forces had inflicted ‘‘heavy damage’’ across the border in retaliation, he added.
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