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Pak. asks Indian official to leave

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD April 20. Pakistan today declared A. K. Khanna, an official of the Indian High Commission here as persona non grata and asked him to leave the country by April 27. On Friday, he was picked up, roughed up and kept in captivity on charges of espionage before being released.

A Foreign Office statement said Mr. Khanna was involved in activities not commensurate with his official status (euphemism for spying). ``The Government of India has been advised to withdraw Mr. Khanna by April 27, 2002,'' it said.

The Indian High Commission has strongly denied the charges levelled against Mr. Khanna and asserted that a dozen or so operatives of the Pakistan intelligence agencies had in broad daylight abducted him. Mr. Khanna was picked up right outside the apartment where he lived and in the presence of several other officials from the mission.

Apparently, there is more than what meets the eye in the version put out by the Pakistan Government. The Pakistan English daily Dawn quoted sources in the Secretariat Police Station as saying that Mr. Khanna was initially detained on suspicion of involvement in the recent church blast — where many foreigners were killed — but later handed over to the Indian embassy.

``The Indian official was having a meeting with a Pakistani national present in the green belt near the Protestant church,'' the paper quoted an unidentified police official as saying.

Police told the paper that Mr. Khanna `confessed' that he was a RAW agent and that he was receiving a document from his Pakistani source.

The name of the Pakistani source, who `escaped' from the site, as given by the Indian official, was Zafar Pervez, they said.

The newspaper said that when asked if Mr. Khanna was tortured during detention, police officials said that he was neither tortured nor abused. The Indian mission doctor, however, insisted that Mr. Khanna has suffered bruises and cuts all over the body.

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