Pak releases fresh Jadhav video, India calls it propaganda
No credibility in such ‘exercises’, says New Delhi
NEWDELHI/ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday released a new video of death row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav, prompting India to dismiss it as another “propagandistic” episode in a long-running diplomatic spat between the two countries that has spiked tensions in recent weeks.
In the video, shown at the weekly briefing at the Foreign Office in Islamabad, Jadhav is seen asking why India was denying he was an intelligence agent and that he was being treated well. The video, more than two minutes long, was apparently shot on December 25, the day Jadhav met his wife and mother. He is heard saying at the start of the footage that he had met his mother “today”.
“I have to say one thing very important here for the Indian public… and the Indian government and the people in the navy — that my commission is not gone. I am a commissioned officer of the Indian Navy,” he said in the video, which is replete with sudden edits and jump cuts between sentences.
New Delhi dismissed it as a “coerced” statement with no credibility.
An external affairs ministry spokesperson said “the absurdity of a captive under duress cer- tifying his own welfare” did not merit a comment.
“This does not come as a surprise. Pakistan is simply continuing its practice of putting out coerced statements on video. It is time for them to realise that such propagandistic exercises simply carry no credibility,” the spokesperson said, adding Pakistan should instead fulfil its international obligations, including pro- viding consular access to Jadhav and stopping the violating of his human rights. Pakistan insists Jadhav is a serving naval officer but India has maintained he had left the service and was running a business in the Iranian port of Chabahar when he was kidnapped by Pakistani intelligence in 2016.
Sentenced to death last year by a military court for alleged involvement in spying, Jadhav also said in the video that he was grateful to the Pakistan government for arranging the meeting with his wife and mother.
But he added: “I saw fear in the eyes of my mother and my wife. Why should there be fear? Whatever has happened has happened. There shouldn’t be fear in the eyes of my mother and my wife.”
This does not come as a surprise. Pakistan is continuing its practice of putting out coerced statements on video. SPOKESPERSON, MINISTRY OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS