India and Pakistan's tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats was a bad omen for their already troubled peace process, analysts said on Sunday. Pakistan on Saturday ordered Indian diplomat Deepak Kaul to leave the country for suspected spying and India reciprocated within hours by expelling an official from Islamabad's embassy in New Delhi.
Pakistani foreign office spokeswoman, Tasnim Aslam said Kaul, councillor at the Indian High Commission (embassy) in Islamabad, was "caught indulging in practices incompatible to his status."
India lodged protest and within hours announced the expulsion of Pakistani diplomat, Sayed Mohammed Rafiq Ahmed, who held the rank of councillor at the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi.
India gave no reason for Ahmed's expulsion. Analysts said the developments were a bad sign for the fledgling peace process. "Expulsions of diplomats after nearly three-and-a-half years was definitely a setback," political analyst Mohammed Afzal Niazi told AFP.
Senior officials of the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministries last met in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka on the sidelines of Saarc summit last week but seemed to make no progress on the peace process.
"It (expulsions) was a clear indicator that the meeting did not go well," Niazi said, adding that otherwise the issue of alleged espionage by an Indian diplomat could had been dealt with more discreetly.
Tasnim Aslam said that Islamabad did not want to bring the expulsions into the media spotlight and blamed India for leaking the story. Another political analyst Talat Masood, described the developments as "very disturbing for the peace process."
"It shows a lack of confidence in the two countries," he said. "It was also very unfortunate if Kaul was caught red-handed." Masood said the expulsions indicate that "the peace process was not steady and stable."
Hasan Askari, the former head of the political science department at the Punjab University, agreed that "this incident was likely to put further strains on the already troubled peace process." Tensions were already growing between the two countries since last month's terrorist attacks on commuter trains in Mumbai.
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