NEW DELHI: India Tuesday accused Pakistan of harassing the family of self-confessed spy on death row Kulbhushan Jadhav, saying their meeting was held in an ‘atmosphere of coercion’.
Jadhav met his mother and wife in Islamabad on Monday, their first meeting since his arrest from Balochistan last year on charges of espionage and terrorism.
“It appears that Jadhav was under considerable stress and speaking in an atmosphere of coercion,” the Indian foreign ministry said in a statement shortly after top Indian officials debriefed his family in New Delhi.
The ministry alleged that Jadhav’s conversation during the meeting was ‘tutored and designed to perpetuate the false narrative of his alleged activities in Pakistan’.
New Delhi said Pakistan disrespected the cultural and religious sensibilities of Jadhav’s family, alleging they were asked to change their clothes, and that his wife was ordered to remove her ‘mangal sutra’ – a necklace worn by married Hindu women.
The Indian foreign ministry added that Pakistani authorities did not return the shoes Jadhav’s wife was ordered to remove. It also accused Islamabad of allowing local journalists to ‘harass and hector’ the Jadhav’s family, violating an understanding between Islamabad and New Delhi to not allow the media ‘close’ access. “You would all agree that this exercise lacked any credibility.”
India also raised concerns over Jadhav’s health, although he was seen sitting up in the grainy pictures. Pakistani officials said he was in good health.
The Foreign Office (FO) categorically rejected criticism by the Indian government of the meeting between Kulbhushan Jadhav and his family, saying the shoes of the Indian spy’s wife were confiscated on security grounds. “There was something in the shoe [of Jadhav’s wife], FO spokesman Dr Faisal said, adding that the shoe was being investigated. The spokesman said Chetankul had been provided replacement shoes and all her jewellery was returned to her. “She acknowledged that she has got back all her stuff, except the shoe,” the FO spokesman said.
“If Indian concerns were serious, the guests or the Indian DHC [deputy high commissioner] should have raised them during the visit, with the media, which was readily available, but at a safe distance, as requested by India,” the spokesman said.
Maintaining that Pakistan does not wish to indulge in a ‘meaningless battle of words’, the spokesman said it was a fact that Jadhav’s mother ‘publicly thanked Pakistan for the humanitarian gesture’. “Nothing more needs to be said on this issue,” he concluded.
Published in Daily Times, December 27th 2017.
