Pakistan receives Indian reply to offer for meeting of Jadhav with wife: FO

ISLAMABAD (APP): Pakistan said on Saturday that it has received reply from India to its offer to arrange a meeting of an Indian national, who has been awarded death penalty over spying and terrorism with his wife.

Pakistani security forces had arrested the Indian Naval officer Kulbushan Sudhir Jadhav alias Hussein Mubarak Patel on March 3, 2016 in a counter-intelligence operation from Balochistan, for his alleged involvement in espionage and sabotage activities against Pakistan.

In April a military court handed down death sentence to Jadhav after he was found guilty. India has approached the International Court of Justice, which has stayed the conviction until a verdict is delivered.

On November 10 the Foreign Office said it has offered to India to host a meeting of Jadhav with his wife on humanitarian grounds.

“Indian reply to Pakistan’s humanitarian offer for Commander Jadhav received & is being considered,” the Foreign Ministry Spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal said on his official Twitter on Saturday.

The spokesman said last week Pakistan decided to arrange a meeting of Commander Jhadev with his wife, in Pakistan, purely on humanitarian grounds and that the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, had been informed about the decision.

Pakistan insists that Jhadev, a serving Commander of the Indian Navy, working with the Indian premier intelligence agency was apprehended by Pakistan law enforcement agencies after he illegally crossed over into Pakistan.

“He confessed before a Magistrate and the Court that he was tasked by RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) to plan, coordinate and organize espionage, terrorist and sabotage activities aimed at destabilizing and waging war against Pakistan,” a Foreign Ministry statement had stated last week.