The natural follow-up to this story from yesterday.
[THEQUINT] India, on Tuesday, 23 June, decided to "reduce the staff strength in the Pakistain High Commission in New Delhi by 50 percent", and "reciprocally reduce its own presence in Islamabad to the same proportion."The decision, which is to be implemented within the next one week, was conveyed to Pakistain’s Chargé d'affaires Syed Haider Shah, after he was summoned by the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi.Diplomatic sources indicate that this would bring down the number to 55, from the mutually agreed-upon 110, in each of its missions in New Delhi as well as Islamabad.
The last time such a drastic diplomatic step was taken was after the Indian Parliament was attacked 19 years ago in December 2001. The then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh had informed the parliament that "regrettably, India’s serious concerns about all the ramifications of the 13 December attack on our Parliament have not been fully grasped in Pakistain." "The depth of concern in India, the totality of rejection by the entire cross-section of our country’s opinion of Pakistain’s continued sponsorship of cross-border terrorism, and its promotion of terrorism as an instrument of state policy, has also not been sufficiently appreciated," his statement had further read.