ISLAMABAD – Responding to Pakistan’s offer to allow Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav to meet his wife, India has requested that his mother be permitted to accompany her as well.
The Foreign Office official, Faisal Chuadhry while briefing the media on Saturday expressed that Pakistan had received India’s response and was considering the matter.
‘Indian Reply to Pakistan’s Humanitarian offer for Commander Jadhav received & is being considered,’ Foreign Office’s Director General for South Asia and Saarc Dr Mohammad Faisal tweeted
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Jadhav’s mother has already filed a visa application with the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, however, she would be allowed to travel once Pakistan issues a green signal.
On November 10, the authorities in Islamabad had granted permission to the convicted Indian spy to meet his wife after a request was made by India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
“The Government of Pakistan has decided to arrange a meeting of Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav with his wife, in Pakistan, purely on humanitarian grounds,” Faisal had said in a statement.
It is not clear what was the core reason behind the surprise move of Islamabad to allow Jadhav’s wife to meet him, however,there were rumours that the two countries discussed the issue in a recent meeting between Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and the newly appointed Pakistani High Commissioner to New Delhi Sohail Mahmood.
Islamabad, however, denied that the Indian spy’s issue came under discussion.
Pakistan’s decision to allow the Indian spy to meet his wife could also be linked to the hearing of the case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as the meeting would dispel the Indian narrative at the ICJ of not granting access to Jadhav’s family.
Commander Jadhav alias, Hussain Mubarak Patel, a serving Commander of the Indian navy, who was working with India’s premier intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), was arrested by law-enforcement agencies on March 3, 2016 after he illegally crossed over into Pakistan.
He confessed before a magistrate and the court that he was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organise espionage, terrorist and sabotage activities aimed at destabilising and waging war against Pakistan.
Jadhav was sentenced to death earlier this year; however, the International Court of Justice ordered a stay in his execution.
