‘Abhinandan not freed under pressure’

ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office Thursday categorically rejected the impression that Pakistan released the Indian Air Force pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan under pressure last March.

"There was no pressure on the Pakistani government to release Indian pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan," Foreign Office Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said in the weekly press briefing here.

"The release was made as a message of peace and goodwill," he added. Chaudhri was responding to the statement of a PML-N politician, who alleged that Abhinandan was released under pressure after his fighter aircraft was downed inside the Pakistan territory. He said Pakistan's armed forces werestill ready to deal with all the threats.

"India will find the leadership, the people and armed forces of Pakistan ready in the event of any misadventure as was evidently demonstrated in February last year," he added. He said India was involved in terrorist activities inside Pakistan and its spies had been caught several times.

He said India's involvement in the recent bomb blast at a seminary (madrassa) in Peshawar could not be ruled out. To a question about Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, currently on death row in Pakistan, Chaudhri said Pakistan had offered consular access to him for a third time but received no positive response from India. He said Pakistan would not amend its laws to allow an Indian counsel to plead Jadhav case in its courts, adding that India should cooperate in this regard.