KARACHI: A former judge of the Indian Supreme Court, Markandey Katju, has said that India’s decision to approach the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case is “a serious mistake” on New Delhi’s part.

In a Facebook post, Mr Katju, who is also a former chairman of the Press Council of India, said the move had in fact created an opening for Pakistan to approach the ICJ to look at “many other issues”, including Kashmir.

According to Dawn.com, he said the reason why Pakistan did not seriously object to the question of jurisdiction was because it might benefit Islamabad on other fronts.

“Now it is certain that Pakistan will approach the ICJ for deciding the Kashmir dispute... Pakistan must be very happy that we went to the ICJ over a single individual’s fate, as now they can raise all kinds of issues, particularly Kashmir, in international fora, to which we had always objected till now. By going to the ICJ we may have opened up a Pandora’s box,” Mr Katju said.

Jadhav was arrested through a counter-intelligence operation in Balochistan for his involvement in espionage and sabotage activities and sentenced to death by a Field General Court Martial.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2017