ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday again offered consular access to Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death for espionage.

Foreign Office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui told media persons that the offer for another consular meeting had been made to New Delhi as a goodwill gesture. She said India had been offered to hold the meeting without security.

It would be the third time for Jadhav to get consular access, if the Indian government decides to avail it. The offer came a day after Indian diplomats abruptly walked out of a meeting with the spy because of reservations over the presence of a security guard during the interaction.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said in a statement that the guard was there because the convicted spy could not have been left alone. He recalled that India had earlier objected to the presence of a glass wall between the spy and the visiting diplomats, which was then removed.

FO says offer made as a goodwill gesture

He said Indian intentions were obvious; they did not want consular access. The Indian diplomats, he maintained, had left without even listening to their national at the last meeting.

The interaction on Thurs­day was the second occasion for Indian diplomats to have got consular access to Jad­hav since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had in July 2019 ruled in favour of India’s right to access its national in Pakistani custody. Jadhav had got his first meeting with Indian consular officials in September last year.

The Thursday meeting was in connection with the opportunity to file a review petition in Jadhav’s case in the Islamabad High Court.

The Pakistan government had through an ordinance allowed foreigners, their authorised representatives or consular officials of the mission of their country to seek a review by the high court of conviction and sentences awarded by military court in instances in which the ICJ has ruled about their rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963 or they feel that they have been deprived of their rights under the convention.

The legislation titled “ICJ Review and Reconsideration Ordinance 2020” was promulgated on May 20. However, it came to be publicly known on July 8 when Islamabad invited New Delhi to file a review and reconsideration petition following refusal by Jadhav to do so.

Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari expressed concern over the ordinance and sought explanation from the government over it. “What is this secret Kulbhushan Jadhav ordinance introduced by our selected government without taking the country or parliament into confidence. Absolutely outrageous. We demand answers and accountability. Yet another reason why this PM must go,” he tweeted.

Kulbhushan Jadhav was arrested in March 2016 from Balochistan. He was charged with spying. A military court convicted and sentenced him to death in April 2017.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2020