New Delhi: Geetika Srivastava, a 2005 batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, will be the new Charge d’Affaires (CDA) in Islamabad, people familiar with the matter told PTI.Srivastava, currently serving as joint secretary at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), will succeed Dr M. Suresh Kumar who is likely to return to New Delhi. She will be the senior most Indian diplomat in Islamabad as Pakistan and India no longer have high commissioners in each other’s capital cities.Pakistan had downgraded its status of diplomatic representation in India after the reading down of Article 370 and withdrawal of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status in 2019.The last Indian high commissioner to Islamabad was Ajay Bisaria, who was withdrawn after Pakistan’s move and the high commissions in both countries have since been headed by a CDA who is a joint secretary-rank equivalent officer.She will also be the first woman to head the Indian mission in Pakistan, the Indian Express reported. Since 1947, when Sri Prakasa was sent as the Indian high commissioner to the then Dominion of Pakistan, New Delhi has always been represented by male diplomats, the report said. There have been 22 heads of mission.Srivastava, who learned Mandarin as part of her foreign language training, has served in the Indian Embassy in China during 2007-09, had stints at the Regional Passport Office in Kolkata and as director of the Indian Ocean Region division in the MEA.