NEW DELHI, April 20 (UPI) —Pakistan demanded today that India oust dissident East Pakistani diplomats who seized the Pakistani deputy high commission, or consulate, in Calcutta on Sunday.
India, which has expressed sympathy for the East Pakistani independence movement, re fused. The Foreign Ministry said India was precluded by law from using force to evict anyone.
In presenting his Government's demands to India, the Pakistani High Commissioner in New Delhi, who is the equivalent of an ambassador, announced that a new deputy high commissioner had been appointed to head the regional office at Calcutta. He is Mahudi Masu, now deputy high commissioner in New Delhi.
The Pakistani note requested that the commission “be cleared of persons who might have taken unlawful possession of it.”
‘An Unfriendly Act’
“Any failure of the part of the Government of India in this regard would be a violation of international conventions and would be interpreted by the Government of Pakistan as an unfriendly act,” the note added.
The former Pakistani deputy high commissioner in Calcutta, M. V. Hossain Ali, who is an East Pakistani, announced on Sunday that he was converting his office into the first foreign mission of Bangla Desh, or Bengal Nation. That is the Bengali name given by the East Pakistani separatists to the independent nation they have pro claimed.
Mr. Ali said he and about 50 of the 100 members of his staff had pledged their allegiance to the government announced last weekend by the followers of Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the East Pakistani political leader. The Sheik himself is believed to have been seized by Pakistani troops in the first stages of the military action in East Pakistan at the end of March.
A. K. Ray, a Foreign Ministry official, told the Pakistani High Commissioner that while India would not evict the dissident East Pakistanis, she would extend protection and facilities to the new appointee for the Calcutta post.