India refuses to send Kulbhushan’s wife alone

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday says that it is pondering over a request from the Indian government to allow the mother of Indian RAW Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav to accompany her daughter-in-law to meet her husband, who is on death row.

“Indian reply to Pakistan's humanitarian offer for Commander Jadhav has been received and is being considered,” tweeted the Foreign Office spokesman without giving details of the contents of the Indian response.

It appears that the Indian government has also put some conditions before the meeting is allowed, but neither government is at present making them public. However, it is clear that India has refused to send wife of the convicted Indian spy alone.

With countless examples of ‘fake news’ on the social media, it was expected that instead of using the informal media, the spokesman would instead give a formal and official response through a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Indian journalists tell The News, that Jadhav’s wife, is understandably, unwilling and reluctant to travel to Pakistan on her own to meet with her imprisoned husband. Initially the request from Jadhav’s mother (Mrs Avantika) to be given a visa to visit her son was put forward to the government, along with the request from the Indian High Commission in Islamabad to be given consular access to the self-confessed spook, but both the requests were turned down. Pakistan is of the view that Jadhav is no ordinary Indian citizen, and the crimes he had confessed to, did not merit giving him consular access.

The issue was raised once again when Pakistan's High Commmissioner to India Sohail Mehmood during his first meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was asked to take a message for his government that the mother of Jadhav should be provided with a visa to meet with her son. But, the General Headquarters informed the Foreign Office that a meeting between Jadhav and his wife is being allowed on ‘humanitarian’ grounds, and not with his mother.

“The wife of Commander Jadhav alias, Hussain Mubarak Patel, a serving Commander of the Indian navy, is allowed to meet her husband on purely humanitarian grounds and based on Islamic traditions and jurisprudence,” spokesman at the Foreign Office had commented earlier. It is expected that when this latest request is forwarded to the General Headquarters where an appeal for his life is with the COAS, both the mother and wife will be allowed a meeting “purely on humanitarian grounds”.

Presently, the International Court of Justice has stayed the execution of Jadhav awarded to him on 10th of April, 2017, by a Field General Court Martial.