ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday informed India that the consular access agreement between the two countries was for prisoners and did not include spies.
Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale called on Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua and made a formal request.
During the meeting, a well-placed source told Pakistan Today, the high commissioner again sought consular access to Indian spy Kulbushan Jadhav.
“The high commissioner also submitted an appeal on behalf of Jhadav. However, the foreign secretary informed Ambassador Bambawale that Pakistan would take a decision over the request ‘on merits of the case’,” the source added.
The source quoted Janjua as informing the Indian high commissioner that the consular access was only meant for the prisoners and not for the spies who were involved in acts of sabotage and terrorism.
“The high commissioner was informed that Pakistan has irrefutable evidence of the involvement of Jhadav in hatching conspiracies against the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC),” the source said. The source added that the high commissioner was also told that Pakistan had presented the evidence to the United Nations’ secretary general.
Pakistan plans to submit another dossier on Jhadav to the UN and other friendly countries.
The source added that the foreign secretary informed the high commissioner that it was the first time in the history of the region that a serving officer of the armed forces had been nabbed who was involved in terrorism-related activities in Pakistan.
Jadhav, who was caught in Balochistan in 2016 and had confessed in a recorded video for fomenting terrorism in Pakistan, was awarded the death penalty in an unprecedented decision that instantly sparked a bitter diplomatic spat between the two countries.
Jadhav was arrested on March 3, 2016, during an operation in Mashkel area of Balochistan. A few weeks later, the army released his recorded confessional statement in which he admitted that he was working for the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s primary foreign intelligence agency, to stoke unrest and instability in Pakistan.
In a six-minute video shown on the national media, Jadhav confessed that he had been assigned the task of creating unrest in Balochistan and Karachi, for which he had visited the country several times using a fake identity since 2003.
Jadhav also admitted of being recruited by RAW and said he was directly reporting to RAW Joint Secretary Anil Kumar Gupta.
The security forces also recovered two identity cards from the possession of Jhadav duly issued by the Indian government with different names.