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K J M Varma in Islamabad
Indian High Commission staffer Devandra Kumar Gupta, who was expelled from Pakistan on Wednesday, was on Friday night dragged out of a taxi, beaten up and dragged away by suspected Pakistani intelligence officials, even as another Indian official was abused and threatened at Lahore while he was on his way to New Delhi.
High Commission officials said Gupta, who had been given seven days time to leave Pakistan, was pulled out of his car on a busy road while he was returning home in the taxi along with his wife.
According to the account given by his wife, who sustained injuries in the scuffle, two cars with about eight people forced the taxi to stop. Gupta was pulled out of the taxi, roughed up and taken away.
His whereabouts were not known.
Hours before Gupta was assaulted, Indian High Commissioner V K Nambiar met Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Inamul Haq and lodged a strong protest about threats and abuses heaped on Ravindranathan, an attaché of the Indian High Commission, while he traveled to New Delhi in the Lahore-Delhi bus.
A person who identified himself as Inter-Services Intelligence official Rehamad Khan sat next to him in the bus at Lahore and virtually pulled the handbag in which Ravindranathan kept cash. The money was finally returned after heated arguments between the two. The ISI official, before leaving the bus, reportedly threatened Ravindranathan.
According to Indian High Commission officials, Haq expressed surprise over the incident and promised to look into it.
PTI
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