Photo: Pakistan Foreign Ministry
A meeting between a convicted Indian spy imprisoned in Pakistan and his mother and wife, who traveled to Islamabad for the meeting, is becoming a point of contention between the two bitter South Asian rivals.
Kulbhushan Jadhav, a former Indian Navy officer, was arrested by Pakistani authorities in 2016 in Balochistan, and has confessed to abetting terrorism in the southwestern province, Karachi and backing the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has been fighting the Pakistani state for years.
Islamabad said it facilitated a meeting between Jadhav and his mother and wife on humanitarian grounds.
But New Delhi has alleged that Pakistan broke the ground rules agreed before the meeting.
Reacting to Indian allegations, Pakistani Foreign Office has categorically rejected the suggestion that the meeting of Kulbhushan Jadhav with his mother and wife, was conducted in an “intimidating” atmosphere. Islamabad has termed Indian allegations as “baseless and twisted.”
“We do not wish to indulge in a meaningless battle of words. Our openness and transparency belies these allegations. If Indian concerns were serious, the guests or the Indian [diplomat] should have raised them during the visit with the media, which was readily available, but at a safe distance, as requested by India,” Foreign Office statement said on Wednesday.
On reports that Jadhav’s wife, Chetankul, was asked to remove her shoes and wear another pair, the spokesperson says her shoes were retained by Pakistan because they contained something ‘metallic’.
“There was something in the shoe. It is being investigated. We gave her a pair of replacement shoes. All her jewellery etc. were returned after the meeting,” spokesperson Faisal said.
New Delhi has alleged that the mother and wife of Jhadav were asked to remove their “bindi, mangalsutra” and bangles ahead of the meeting.
“For some inexplicable reason, despite her repeated requests, the shoes of the wife of Shri Jadhav were not returned to her after the meeting,” India said on Tuesday.
“We would caution against any mischievous intent in this regard”.
But the Foreign Office statement recalls that Jadhav’s mother “publicly thanked Pakistan for the humanitarian gesture” in front of the media, adding: “Nothing more needs to be said.”
The mother and wife of Commander Jadhav sitting comfortably in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs pakistan . We honour our commitments pic.twitter.com/hILiMyp7Zl
— Dr Mohammad Faisal (@ForeignOfficePk) December 25, 2017
According to media reports, Jadhav’s wife Chetankul Jadhav could be seen wearing brown shoes, but left in white slippers.
Meanwhile, Pakistanis say India, which denies Jadhav is a member of the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), has no regard for the Pakistani lives lost due to New Delhi’s support for terrorist groups in Pakistan.
Journalist Amir Ghauri took Shashi Tharoor, a Congress MP in Lok Sabha, to task for his comments on the meeting, observing that Tharoor “would not comment on the gross nature of Jadhav’s brief or the gravity and grimness of his actions but he touched on the familial emotionality of the exercise by saying, “they ( the mother and wife) could not touch him, hold him.”
“One wonders what would men like Mr Tharoor say to mothers, fathers, wives, siblings or children of those killed in activities conceived, coordinated and carried out by men like Kulbhushan Jadhav,” he wrote in The News newspaper.
