ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will execute an Indian who allegedly confessed to spying for Indian intelligence, the powerful military said on Monday in a move that quickly raised tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals.
The man, named by the army as Kulbushan Sudhir Jadhav, who also goes by the alias Hussein Mubarak Patel, was found guilty by a military court which was closed to the public and was sentenced to death.
“Today, (army chief) Gen Qamer Javed Bajwa has confirmed his death sentence,” a military statement said, without stating when the execution would take place.
New Delhi slammed the decision. “If this sentence against an Indian citizen, awarded without observing basic norms of law and justice, is carried out, the government and people of India will regard it as a case of premeditated murder,” the foreign ministry said.
The Pakistani statement said Jadhav told the court he was tasked by India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) intelligence agency to “plan, coordinate, and organise espionage/sabotage activities aiming to destabilise and wage war against Pakistan” in the southwestern province of Balochistan and in the bustling port city of Karachi.
A Pakistani security official told AFP the court-martial had been kept secret even within the ranks of the military.
India has previously denied as “baseless” the claim that Jadhav, whom Islamabad says was arrested in Balochistan in March last year, was a spy. Its foreign ministry said it had summoned the Pakistan High Commissioner (ambassador) Abdul Basit to protest at the conviction and sentence.
The ministry said there was no evidence against Jadhav, whom Indian media have described as a former naval officer, calling the proceedings against him farcical. It also dismissed the Pakistani military claim Jadhav had been provided with a “defending officer” as “clearly absurd”, and said it had made 13 requests for consular access to him over the past year, all of which were denied.
Shortly after the arrest the Pakistani military released a video showing Jadhav confessing to working in Pakistan for years, though it was unclear if it had been filmed under duress.
