Considering India's request to grant visa to Kulbhushan Jadhav's mother: Pak Foreign Office

Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Nafees Zakaria has said that Pakistan is considering India's request to grant a visa to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav's mother so that she can travel to the country to visit her son, who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court in April.

The Pakistani Army court has sentenced Jadhav to death after the Field General Court Martial found him guilty of "espionage and sabotage activities" in Pakistan. The neighbouring country has claimed that Jadhav was arrested from Balochistan province by security forces on March 3, 2016, after he entered the territory from Iran.

Zakaria, in a weekly media briefing at the foreign office in Pakistan, said the government was considering issuing a visa to Jadhav's mother Avantika Jadhav so that she can visit her son who is lodged in a jail in that country, Radio Pakistan reported.

However, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay told the media on Thursday, July 13, that "there has been no change in position on providing consular access and visa for his mother. There has been no progress on that front."

This comes after India's Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj lashed out at Pakistan Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz for not having "the courtesy even to acknowledge" her letter requesting him to grant a visa to Avantika. She added that she could see no reason as to why Aziz would hesitate to give recommendations for the issuance of medical visas to "nationals of his own country."

"We also have a visa application pending for an Indian national Mrs. Avantika Jadhav who wants to meet her son in Pakistan against whom they have pronounced a death sentence. I wrote a personal letter to Mr. Sartaj Aziz for the grant of her visa to Pakistan. However, Mr. Aziz has not shown the courtesy even to acknowledge my letter," Swaraj said in a series of tweets on July 10.

India has consistently been requesting Pakistan to grant a visa to Jadhav's mother so that she can visit her son. However, Pakistan has not acted upon India's request yet. Ithas also denied India consular access to Jadhav despite repeated requests from the Indian side.

India approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on May 8 this year accusing Pakistan of "egregious violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations" in the matter of "the detention and trial" of Jadhav. The ICJ, in turn, wrote to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asking him to stay the death sentence of the Indian national.

Meanwhile, Zakaria also regretted the fact that India has imposed several restrictions on the issuance of visa to Pakistani patients. 

He accused India of continuously violating the ceasefire agreement and also said that innocent Kashmiris were being targeted by the Indian security forces, Radio Pakistan added.