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Pakistani intelligence blocked the vehicle of India's top diplomat in Islamabad several times as he headed to official engagements, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said Sunday.

Indian high commission (embassy) Charge d'Affaires Sudhir Vyas was en route to the Malaysian mission Saturday when Pakistani officials stopped him, the news agency said.

"It took one and a half hours for the charge d'affaires to cover the 10-minute distance," PTI quoted an "agitated" Indian High Commission official in Islamabad as saying.

Later Saturday, the vehicle carrying Vyas was again stopped by Pakistani authorities, the agency said.

"This is part of a pattern of harassment of Indian diplomats followed by Pakistani agencies," Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said.

"This is in violation of the bilateral code of conduct, international norms as well as the Vienna Convention."

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told a meeting in Port Blair, capital of the country's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, that the treatment of the diplomat was against all norms of international diplomacy.

"What does Pakistan want? Our envoy has been ill-treated in Islamabad today," he said.

Vajpayee said he was keen to have peaceful relations with Pakistan, but first Islamabad had to change its aggressive attitude towards India.

"After all, you can not clap with one hand," he added.

India and Pakistan frequently allege harassment of their diplomats in the other country, but the incidents usually involve low-level officials.

Vyas is India's top diplomat posted in Islamabad. New Delhi recalled its high commissioner, Vijay Nambiar, and ordered the Pakistani representative in India, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, to leave after an Islamic militant attack on India's parliament in December 2001.

New Delhi blamed the attack on two rebel groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, battling Indian rule in Kashmir. The two groups were founded in Pakistan but banned after the parliament attack.

India accuses Pakistan of backing militant groups waging an armed insurgency in Indian Kashmir, but Pakistan denies the charge and says it extends only diplomatic and moral support to these groups.

"If Pakistan will not change its attitude, our security forces are fully prepared to guard our country," Vajpayee said. 

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