ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday says that it is pondering over a request from the Indian government (that Mrs Avantika, the mother of Indian RAW Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav, be allowed to accompany her daughter-in-law who has been allowed by the General Headquarters to meet with her husband, who is on death row). “Indian reply to Pakistan’s humanitarian offer for Commander Jadhav received & is being considered,” tweeted spokesman at the Foreign Office (FO) without giving details of the contents of the Indian response, which has been leaked by New Delhi to the Indian media. It appears that the Indian government has also put some conditions before a meeting is allowed between Jadhav and his family, 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 according to her father-in-law, is understandably, unwilling and reluctant to travel to Pakistan on her own to meet with her imprisoned husband. Initially requests from Jadhav’s mother to be given a visa to visit her son were put forward to the government here as well as requests from the Indian High Commission in Islamabad to be given counsellor access to the self-confessed spook, but both the requests were ignored. However, Pakistan was of the view that Jadhav was no ordinary Indian citizen, and the crimes he had confessed to, did not merit giving him counsellor access. The issue was raised once again when Pakistani envoy Sohail Mehmood during his first meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was told to take a message for his government that the mother of Jadhav should be provided with a visa to meet with her son. But surprisingly, the General Headquarters informed the Foreign Office that a meeting between Jadhav and his wife was being allowed on ‘humanitarian’ grounds, and not with his mother. There was no explanation given as to why and when the mother was seeking a meeting; however, Rawalpindi decided that only the wife be allowed to meet the prisoner. “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 & based on Islamic traditions & 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, “Islamic traditions and jurisprudence” will come into play and both 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.
