{"id":30021,"date":"2016-11-04T03:03:01","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T03:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/pakistan-accuses-indian-embassy-officials-of\/"},"modified":"2016-11-04T03:02:59","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T03:02:59","slug":"pakistan-accuses-indian-embassy-officials-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/pakistan-accuses-indian-embassy-officials-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan accuses Indian embassy officials of spying"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Allegation comes days after similar move by India, which accused six Pakistani diplomats of being part of a spy network.}<\/p>\n

Pakistan has accused eight Indian embassy employees of involvement in spying and “terrorism” but stopped short of expelling them, in the latest apparent tit-for-tat move as relations between the two countries deteriorate.<\/p>\n

The declaration on Thursday came days after a similar move by New Delhi, which accused six Pakistani diplomats of being part of a spy network, forcing Islamabad to withdraw them from their posts.<\/p>\n

“A number of Indian diplomats and staff … have been found involved in coordinating terrorist and subversive activities in Pakistan under the garb of diplomatic assignments,” Nafees Zakariya, spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign ministry, told a press briefing in Islamabad.<\/p>\n

He went on to name the eight men, including one accused of using a false identity to pose as an employee of a Pakistani mobile network.<\/p>\n

“All these eight officials were involved in espionage, subversion and supporting of terrorist activities,” he said.<\/p>\n

New Delhi rejected the allegations, calling them “baseless and unsubstantiated”.<\/p>\n

“We completely reject the baseless and unsubstantiated allegations made by Pakistan against certain officials of Indian High Commission in Islamabad,” Vikas Swarup, foreign ministry spokesman told reporters in New Delhi.<\/p>\n

“The allegations against the Indian officials represent an afterthought and a crude attempt to target these officials for no fault of theirs,” he said.<\/p>\n

Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours have soared since a raid last month killed 19 soldiers on an Indian army base near the de facto border dividing the disputed Kashmir region, the worst such attack in more than a decade.<\/p>\n

India blamed fighters in Pakistan and said it had responded by carrying out strikes across the heavily militarised border, although Islamabad denies that these took place.<\/p>\n

Cross-border shelling between the two countries has led to at least 14 civilian deaths in November alone.<\/p>\n

Tensions were already high before the army base attack, with nearly 90 people killed in clashes with security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir over the death of a popular rebel leader in July.<\/p>\n

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from Britain in 1947. Both claim the territory in full and have fought two wars over the mountainous region.<\/p>\n

The latest round of diplomatic expulsions began on October 27 when India detained a Pakistani visa official accused of spying, later declaring him persona non grata and sending him home.<\/p>\n

Pakistan responded with a similar move the same day.<\/p>\n

\"Pakistan<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Allegation comes days after similar move by India, which accused six Pakistani diplomats of being part of a spy network.} Pakistan has accused eight Indian embassy employees of involvement in spying and “terrorism” but stopped short of expelling them, in the latest apparent tit-for-tat move as relations between the two countries deteriorate. The declaration on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-30021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30021"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=30021"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=30021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}