ISLAMABAD: Pakistan ruled out on Wednesday any possibility of giving India consular access to Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, Radio Pakistan reported.
Jadhav was recently sentenced to death by a military court for espionage and terrorism in Karachi and Balochistan. Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua conveyed the message to Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale, who called on her in the federal capital.
The Indian envoy repeated India’s demand for consular access. However, Janjua, pointing out the legal aspects of the case, said Jadhav was a serving Indian naval officer involved in terrorism in Pakistan.
Jadhav, who was caught in Balochistan in 2016 and has confessed to fomenting terrorism in Pakistan – was handed down the death penalty in an unprecedented decision that instantly sparked a bitter diplomatic spat between the two countries.
Jadhav was arrested on March 3 last year 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.
