Pak didn’t grant ‘unimpeded’ access to Jadhav: MEA

TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ Pakistan on Thursday provided consular access to Indian prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav, but the Indian government said the access was neither meaningful nor credible, and the death row prisoner appeared visibly under stress.

Jadhav, the 50-year-old retired Indian Navy officer, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of “espionage and terrorism” in April 2017. India approached the International Court of Justice against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging the death sentence.

The Hague-based ICJ ruled in July last year that Pakistan must undertake an “effective review and reconsideration” of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consular access to India without further delay. On Thursday, Pakistan Foreign Office claimed that two consular officers of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad were provided “unimpeded and uninterrupted” consular access to Jadhav.