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India gives Pakistan embassy staffer week to leave

NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday told a Pakistan High Commission employee in New Delhi to leave the country for what it described as "activities incompatible with his official status", a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Pakistani Deputy High Commissioner Akbar Zeb was summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs earlier in the day and was told the staff member had a week to pack his bags.

"He was informed that Mr Shabbir Hussain Shah, a staff member of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, had been indulging in activities incompatible with his official status," he told reporters, without elaborating.

The accusation follows the arrest of an Indian High Commission staff member in the Pakistan capital, Islamabad, on Sunday, accusing him of carrying an explosive device.

India said the allegation was "fanciful and far-fetched" and that evidence to support the charge was "concocted and baseless".

Nuclear-capable arch rivals India and Pakistan often swap charges of harassing and mistreating each other's diplomats.

Relations have worsened since New Delhi accused Islamabad of being involved in an eight-day hijack ordeal that ended peacefully in Afghanistan on December 31. Islamabad denies the charge.

The ministry spokesman said the Indian government told the Pakistani deputy high commissioner on Wednesday that his country should arrest and extradite the five hijackers.

The hijackers have not been seen in public since they released 155 hostages on the aircraft in exchange for three militants freed from Indian jails.-Reuters