The Kulbhushan Jadhav case

There may be no early conclusion to the matter

In what some might consider an unusual intervention the Pakistan High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit — whose tenure ends at the end of July 2017 — has said that ‘there is room for rethink’ in the case of the spy Kulbhushan Jadhav. It will be recalled that Jadhav was caught red-handed and made a detailed confessional statement that was released to the public domain. There is not a shred of doubt that he was conducting intelligence operations inside Pakistan on behalf of an Indian agency. Moreover, he had been doing so for some time, he was not an early entrant to the spying game.

Once caught Jadhav was tried and convicted by a military court in April and sentenced to death. India as expected protested the sentence and has appealed to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, which is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations — and rarely moves with speed. Now it appears that Mr Basit is indicating a softening of stance, and said that if the ICJ rejected the Indian appeal then Jadhav could appeal for clemency first to Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Bajwa and if that failed then he could appeal direct to President Mamnoon Husain. In any event Pakistan, said Mr Basit, will not carry out the death sentence until the appeals cycle is completed one way or the other. There may be no early conclusion.

It must be assumed that Mr Basit was speaking with the foreknowledge of his superiors, and not as a private citizen. The government of Nawaz Sharif has been consistent in taking a pacific line with India despite some considerable provocations. The Jadhav case if it goes to an execution is going to place relations even deeper into the freezer than they already are. The Indians are keeping a close and gelid eye on the progress, or otherwise, of the trial of Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed that Mr Basit observed that his government was ‘trying its best’ to keep him under house arrest, a comment of surpassing opacity. It is likely that Mr Jadhav is going to have a long wait one way or the other.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23^rd, 2017.

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