Jadhav: A shy man who spent most of the time on his farms
A new adi residents still shocked over Pakistan sentencing him to death
It used to be one of hundreds of nondescript villages that dot the arterial highway between Mumbai and Bengaluru, known only to people for a toll plaza that saw eateries and shops mushroom around it since it opened in 2004.
But in the past few days, Anewadi has been pitchforked to the spotlight after former Indian navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav – whose family owned land and a house in the village – was given the death sentence in a military court in Pakistan.
Villagers say they have been glued to the television since Monday, when news of the sentence. They are not aware of the wrangling between India and Pakistan over the 46-year-old, or the fast-deteriorating diplomatic ties, but say they remember Jadhav as a shy man who kept mostly to himself.
“Whenever he came to Anewadi, he has something to offer to the villagers,” said Sadashiv Tilekar, who runs an auto spareparts shop in the village of 5,000 people located in Maharashtra’s Satara district.
“The charges are completely false. I knew him for the last 10 years since he had purchased land in our village.”
Many of Anewadi’s inhabitants are sugarcane farmers and agricultural labourers who remember working on the land Jadhav’s family owned.
Local residents say Jadhav gave away school uniforms, blankets and other school stationery and stayed in the redbricked, asbestos-roofed, onestorey home that stands out among the cramped clusters of small pukka houses in Anewadi.
“He would speak little,” recalled Dada Patil, who owns a plot adjacent to Jadhav’s farm.
The former navy officer, villagers said, was a family person. “He would bring his parents. We often saw him taking care of them,” added Patil.
The villagers still appear shocked by the verdict and Jadhav’s future dominates discussion every evening at the tea stalls that line the road running through the village. Many say they know the odds are stacked against Jadhav but take hope in the release of Chandu Chavan, another soldier who crossed over the border and was captured by Pakistan.
“We know it’s (Jadhav’s release) not easy. But government can do it if it decides,” said Ashwini Shinde, Anewadi village head.
Shinde said Jadhav can be brought back home the way Chavan returned back.