Smoking guns and klaxons: why the fuss over Jadhav’s sentence?

Well, where there’s smoke…

The Indian media and government have gone berserk. India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has assured Indian lawmakers that New Delhi would go “out of its way” to save sentenced spy Kulbhoshan Jadhav from death row in Pakistan and warned that Commander Jadhav’s execution would be considered “pre-meditated murder” and Pakistan would face grave consequences for it.

While the clock is ticking for Jadhav, one wonders: why the heightened protests for the death sentence to Commander Jadhav? There have been dozens of other Indian spies arrested by Pakistan but India never created this level of hullaballoo.

There was Sarabjit Singh, arrested in August 1990, who India claimed had strayed into Pakistan in a state of drunken stupor. Sarabjit Singh was charged with carrying out four bombings in Faisalabad, Multan and Lahore, killing 14 Pakistani citizens and was sentenced to death, but was died after sustaining wounds from a fellow inmate’s attack. He was given a state funeral by India and – tit for tat – India murdered an incarcerated Pakistani prisoner.

Kashmir Singh was arrested in 1973 and sentenced to death on charges of espionage. He spent 35 years on death row, insisting he wasn’t a spy. Upon his pardon by President Musharraf, he crossed the border and immediately mocked Pakistan with claims of being a spy and serving his country.

Ravindra Kaushik was a theatre artist born in Indian Rajasthan who trained with RAW for tears before slipping into Pakistan. Enrolling in Karachi University as Nabi Ahmad Shakir, he joined the Pakistan Army upon graduation and passed on sensitive information to RAW from 1979-83. It wasn’t till another captured RAW agent blew his cover that he was caught and imprisoned for 16 years, finally dying of pulmonary tuberculosis in 2001.

Sheikh Shamim was caught red-handed – like Commander Jadhav – in 1989 near the Pak-India border and was hung in 1999.

Ramraj is the only RAW agent arrested directly upon arrival in Pakistan in 2004. After serving a six years’ sentence, he returned to India and was spurned by his parent agency.

Surjit Singh served 30 years’ incarceration in Pakistan during which RAW paid a monthly stipend to his family. But upon his return, the agency decided to ignore him.

Gurbux Ram returned to India in 2006 after serving 18 years’ imprisonment in Pakistan. According to a Times of India report, Gurbux Ram complained that his family did not receive the same facilities as Sarabjit Singh’s did in his absence.

Vinod Sathe was arrested in 1977 on charges of espionage for India and released in 1988. Upon his return to India, he organised an organisation named “Jammu ex-Sleuths association” for the support of former Indian spies who have suffered incarceration. Vinod Sathe also complains of having been ignored by RAW after his return.

Let us examine the evidence against Commander Jadhav. Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj alleges that Jadhav was awarded the death sentence on “concocted charges”. She maintains that Jadhav was “doing business in Iran” and that he was abducted and taken to Pakistan.

But Jadhav confessed – before a magistrate and court – that he was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organise espionage and sabotage activities seeking to destabilise and wage war against Pakistan by impeding the efforts of law enforcement agencies for the restoration of peace in Balochistan and Karachi. He was in possession of an Indian Passport under the fake name of Hussein Mubarak Patel.

Besides his confession, his telephone call records indicate he was also transporting ‘anti-state elements’ from Pakistan to New Delhi for RAW training. He revealed that he’d established a terror network in Balochistan and had imparted Naval fighting training to Baloch separatists aimed at Pakistani ports.

Jadhav commenced intelligence operations in 2003, establishing a business in Chabahar, Iran, allowing him to visit Karachi in 2003 and 2004 and was picked up by RAW by end of 2013.

His job, he said, was meeting with Baloch insurgents and collaborating to carry out activities “of a criminal nature, leading to the killing or maiming of Pakistani citizens.”

The fact is that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood on the floor of Bangladesh Parliament on June 10, 2015 and boasted that he had fought alongside the Bangladeshi separatist guerrillas Mukti Bahini for the liberation of Bangladesh. On India’s national day, standing atop the ramparts of Delhi’s Red Fort, Modi declared support for the Baloch separatists. Both make Modi susceptible for legal action for his role against Pakistan. Since May 2014, when Narendra Modi took oath of office as Indian Prime Minister, he and his goons have been plotting to isolate Pakistan and now their cover has been blown. Little surprise then that Commander Jadhav was caught red handed – trying to destabilise Pakistan on behest of RAW and Modi.

Members of the ruling Bharatiya Junta Party have insinuated that Pakistan sentenced Commander Jadhav to death at China’s behest to teach India a lesson for inviting the Dalai Lama to visit in Tawang. While the religious leader is a thorn in China’s side under ordinary circumstances, his visit to Tawang is being seen by Beijing as especially provocative because the town is part of the 84,000 square kilometres of Indian Territory that China officially claimed as its own.

Nothing could be farther than the truth because Commander Jadhav has been under arrest since March 2016 while the Dalai Lama’s visit came about on April 14, 2017. Moreover China is not as petty minded as India is.

The clock is ticking for Commander Jadhav but it’s imperative that Pakistan present the convicted Indian spy to the world, exposing India’s machinations against Pakistan.

India’s external affairs minister claims that Pakistan denied consular access to Commander Jadhav. She forgets that Commander Jadhav is not just a spy but also a self confessed terrorist.

For the first time Pakistan has found a smoking gun linking Modi and his government to subversive activities against Pakistan. Commander Jadhav will be presented to the world as evidence of the heinous Indian plots to sabotage the CPEC and balkanise Pakistan.