Jadhav does not fall within Vienna Convention purview

THE HAGUE: Dismissing India’s stance, Pakistan has made it clear in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Kulbhushan Jadhav is not an ordinary prisoner and so the Vienna Convention is not applicable in his case, Geo News reported.

In its counter-memorial, Pakistan stated that Jadhav is not an ordinary criminal as he had entered the country with the intent of spying and carrying out sabotage. The reply also states that Jadhav, who is a serving officer of the Indian Navy, does not fall into the purview of the Vienna Convention. The international court will now decide whether to take the case forward for hearing or ask the parties (India and Pakistan) to submit more documents.

Talking to Geo News earlier, Attorney General of Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf Ali said he thought the case would be taken up for hearing around April, May. The recently elected judges of the ICJ will take their oath on February 6. Former chief justice of Pakistan Tassaduq Hussain Jillani will also serve as an ad-hoc judge in the bench.

Pakistan's reply was submitted by the Foreign Office’s Director India, Fariha Bugti. Earlier, Geo News reported that the reply was jointly prepared by the attorney general, Pakistan's legal team in the case, and officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Sources further revealed that the document included details of Jadhav's involvement in subversive activities inside Pakistan, his trial and sentencing.

Commander Jadhav — an on-duty Indian Navy officer working for Indian covert agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) — was arrested on March 3, 2016, from Balochistan, after he entered Pakistan from Iran. The reply also encompasses the charge-sheet against the convicted RAW operative and narrates Pakistan's stance comprehensively, sources said. Islamabad ahas said that the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav substantiates India’s continued involvement in subversion and sabotage in Pakistan.

Earlier this year, Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi handed over a dossier to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres detailing evidence of Indian subversive activities inside Pakistan. The dossier contained Jadhav's confessional statement and related documents and evidence of the Indian interference in Balochistan. Video evidence of an Indian Navy submarine sneaking into Pakistani waters on November 18, 2016 is also part of the dossier.

The dossier also included evidence of contacts of Indian intelligence officials, working under diplomatic cover at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, with terrorists. Pakistan, in the dossier, urged the United Nations to prevent India from attempting to destabilise it.

Investigations after Jadhav's arrest last year had revealed that the undercover Indian agent's main agenda was to sabotage the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor through propaganda and to create disharmony through the Baloch nationalist political parties.

However, Jadhav is not the first RAW operative caught snooping in Pakistan. Prior to him, a good number of Indian spies have been spotted and arrested in Pakistan during the course of country's enmity with its neighbouring nation.

A detailed list of Indian agents caught carrying out subversive activities and espionage in Pakistan can be read here in this exhaustive research conducted by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network.

The most notable among dozens of Indian spies caught in Pakistan included Ravindra Kaushik (1952–1999), who was sent across the border in 1975 on a mission at the age of 23 after extensive training in Delhi for two years. Kaushik succeeded in getting a civilian clerk's job in the Military Accounts Department of the Pakistan Army and kept on passing valuable information to RAW from 1979 to 1983.

Another famous RAW agent Sarabjit Singh (also known as Manjit Singh) was convicted of terrorism and spying by the Pakistan Supreme Court for a series of bomb attacks that had killed 14 people in Lahore and Faisalabad during 1990.