Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit has been apparently told to provide the copy of the judgement of the military court and other papers used during the trial.
India said it would exhaust all diplomatic and legal options to save the life of former Navy official Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court.
The assertion came amidst a significant development on Wednesday, with Pakistan linking Jadhav with a Karachi warlord Uzair Baloch, who was booked by the Pakistan Rangers on espionage changes. Baloch was handed over to the Army on Wednesday and he will now stand trial.
Hope that Jadhav’s life might be saved has come after Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif told the Senate that he had the right to move the Army’s court of appeal within 60 days, followed by submission of mercy pleas to the Army chief and then to the president. Meanwhile government sources in New Delhi said they were in the process of engaging the top legal brains to contest the case of Jadhav and will continue to press Islamabad to provide consular access.
Maintaining that Pakistan will not carry out the hanging sentence immediately, officials here said that security agencies have also recommended using diplomatic options for saving Jadhav from death row. India is preparing to brief US National Security Advisor H R McMaster on the issue who is visiting New Delhi and Islamabad next week.
Meanwhile, Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit has been apparently told to provide the copy of the judgement of the military court and other papers used during the trial. Sources here told DNA said that they were still to understand the hurry behind the Pakistan military court sentencing Jadhav and the urgency with which Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa had confirmed it.
As to India’s strategy in dealing with the Jadhav issue, officials said that security agencies have suggested that they deal with the issue through backchannels but keep pressurising Islamabad through official channels, without undermining India’s position and stature. They added that on the basis of their investigation, they were certain that Jadhav was picked up from Iran and then handed over to Pakistani agencies.
In a significant development, Pakistan’s Army on Wednesday took custody of a Karachi-based underworld don who they claim was helping Kulbhushan Jadhav to spy against the country. According to Pakistani media reports, the Army took custody of Uzair Baloch on espionage charges who was earlier arrested by by Pakistan Rangers personnel outside Karachi in January 2016 in a raid. Baloch’s case is also mired in controversy.
More than a year after his arrest in Dubai by Interpol, he mysteriously surfaced in Karachi, only to be caught by the Pakistan Rangers. Baloch is the head of the Lyari Gang, a Karachi-based criminal gang and Pakistan claim he was working for Iranian intelligence officials. Once close to Pakistan’s former president Asif Ali Zardari and his Pakistan Peoples’ Party, Baloch, had been declared as an absconder in over 40 cases.
Meanwhile, in Islamabad, Pakistan media reported that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and powerful Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa would not submit to any pressure on the issue of Jadhav. The two held a meeting on Wednesday where Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Bajwa took the prime minister into confidence regarding the issue of Jadhav.
Meanwhile, a Baloch activist Mehrab Sarjov in a video message on social media endorsed Indian position, saying Jadhav was not in Balochistan at all, but was kidnapped from the Chabahar port . “His kidnapping was kept a secret from the public and media by Pakistan,” Sarjov said.
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