Mother, wife to leave Pakistan within hours of meeting Kulbhushan Jadhav

Kulbhushan Jadhav’s wife and mother will arrive in Islamabad on Monday to meet the Indian prisoner on death row, the Pakistan foreign office has said.

They will arrive in Islamabad by a commercial flight and leave the same day after the meeting, it added.

India’s Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh will accompany the visitors to the meeting.

“India informs that the mother and wife of Commander Jadhav will arrive by commercial flight on Dec 25 and leave the same day. Indian DHC in Islamabad will be the accompanying diplomat,” Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal tweeted on Saturday night.

Earlier, media reports said that Pakistan had asked India to convey the plan of Jadhav’s family at the earliest otherwise it would be difficult to arrange the meeting.

Separately, Faisal had said that the meeting would take place at the ministry of foreign affairs and its photo and video footage would be issued.

The mother and wife of Jadhav were being provided with a meeting with him in the light of “Islamic traditions and based on purely humanitarian grounds,” he had said.

Pakistan on December 20 issued visa to Jadhav’s wife and mother to visit Islamabad to meet him.

Jadhav, 47, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April, following which India moved the International Court of Justice in May. The ICJ halted his execution on India’s appeal pending the final verdict by it.

Pakistan has repeatedly denied India consular access to Jadhav on the ground that it was not applicable in cases related to spies.

It said that Jadhav is not an ordinary person as he had entered the country with the intent of spying and carrying out sabotage activities.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav alias Hussein Mubarak Patel from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran.

India, however, maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.