PAKISTAN has granted permission to the convicted Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav to meet his wife on humanitarian grounds. A note verbale to this effect has been sent to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

Jadhav is an Indian national arrested in Balochistan over charges of terrorism and spying for India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

India has been blatantly sponsoring terrorism in all his neighbouring countries for long. In this context, the Jadhav enterprise was directly responsible for 1,345 killings of innocent Pakistanis and injuring 7,500 others.

The financial cost to Pakistan has been about three billion dollars mainly in lost business and bad perception affecting tourism, sports (cricket), exports and imports. Indirect cost may not be ever known.

What about the kith and kin of those who perished owing to the Jadhav network and the trauma suffered by loved ones?

Ironically, the Indian media has been claiming that Pakistan has permitted Jadhav’s wife access as it is under pressure from International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The government should clarify whether there is pressure from the ICJ.

Afia Ambreen
Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2017