Kulbhushan case

Pakistan to submit counter memorial to ICJ next month
By Muhammad Saleh Zaafir
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will submit counter memorial to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in second week of next month against the Indian appeal regarding its serving navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav who had been running a terror and subversive spying network in Pakistan being an active agent of India’s terror sponsoring intelligence gathering outfit RAW and arrested last year red-handed in Balochistan.
He has been handed death sentence on account of his heinous crimes of which he had made confession and his mercy petition is pending before the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa since he was awarded the sentence by the military court. Highly placed diplomatic sources told The News that the drafting group has gathered credible and unimpeachable evidence pertaining to the offences of Kulbhushan beside the cases in which he was sentenced that too had enough evidence to furnish his crimes. The sources maintained that Kulbhushan is healthy in confinement and he is being treated well.
The ICJ will be provided Kulbhushan’s health certificate and Pakistan will also inform it that it was willing to facilitate meeting with his wife on humanitarian considerations since she is the first kin in relations. India’s refusal to allow his wife in meeting alone is a negative reaction but Pakistan will consider sympathetically to additional request for issuance of visa to the criminal’s mother as well for meeting him. The formal decision will be taken in a couple of days, the sources said. India has already submitted its counter memorial to the ICJ and Pakistan has obtained its copy, the sources said.
It is likely that the hearing of the Indian appeal could be heard in May next year. Meanwhile, sources said that Pakistan-India talks could take place only after India asks for it as New Delhi broke the Composite Dialogue with Pakistan unilaterally. In the prevailing circumstance, the talks between Pakistan and India are not on the cards. India’s attitude is getting tougher with every passing day. Pakistan is undeterred about India’s behaviour but it must respect the human rights of Kashmiris who are being brutalised by occupying Indian forces in Indian Held Kashmir (IHK).
The sources said that it is expected that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi will be under one roof on November 30 and December 1 next during the heads of governments conference of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member countries at Sochi, a picturesque city of Russia, but they have no chance to have a meeting on the margins of the gathering since India hasn’t made any request for the purpose.
Pakistan will not ask for such a meeting. The two countries are attending the meeting for the first time after becoming member of the prestigious organisation, the sources reminded. Prime Minister Abbasi will have meetings with other member countries’ heads of government on the occasion, the sources said.