After alleging that its diplomats were “harassed” in the national capital of India, Pakistan on Thursday called back its High Commissioner in Delhi, Sohail Mahmood, for a meeting.

It has been reported that Islamabad has asked its high commissioner to India to come back to the Pakistani capital for an unspecified time.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal, addressing his weekly press briefing, said consultations with the High Commissioner will be held over “recent incidents of harassing of their diplomats”.

The row between India and Pakistan over the treatment of each other’s officials has escalated.

On Tuesday night, Pakistani foreign office had summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner JP Singh to the foreign office in Islamabad and lodged a protest over what it called the maltreatment being meted out to the officials and families of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi.

Islamabad emphasised that under the Vienna Convention, the safety and the security of Pakistani diplomats and their families were the responsibility of New Delhi, said an official release from the Pakistan foreign office, copies of which were also made available to the Indian media.

“The total apathy and failure of the Indian Government to put a halt to these despicable incidents, sparing not even young children, indicates both a lack of capacity to protect foreign diplomats posted in India or a more reprehensible, complicit unwillingness to do so,’’ it said.

With bilateral relations at new low, Indian officials say the latest incidents of harassment and intimidation of diplomats was initiated by Pakistan with Indian diplomats posted in Islamabad facing a series of incidents of harassment for more than a year, which peaked in February.

Last month, there were intrusions into the Indian diplomatic residential complex under construction in Islamabad. The main contractor at the chancery was told to end his services. Water and electricity supply to the high commission was also cut off. Indian High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria had met Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua last month to lodge a formal complaint but nothing was done in the matter.

Meanwhile, Pakistan claimed that the officers, staff and the families of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi continue to face intense harassment, intimidation and outright violence from the Indian state agencies. These have escalated exponentially in the last few days.