Kulbhushan Jadhav case: India's demand for release outlandish, says Pakistan's Khawar Qureshi

On the second day of hearing of Kulbhushan Jadhav case, Pakistan submitted its stand against India at The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague amidst escalated tensions between India and Pakistan over Pulwama terror attack that left 40 CRPF personnel dead. Pakistan's Attorney General Anwar Mansoor Khan says that India's demand for release of Kulbhushan Jadhav is outlandish. He said that India didn't answer questions about Jadhav. "They didn't tell us at what age Jadhav retire. If there was evidence of his retirement," he added.

In the first round of arguments on Monday, Senior advocate Harish Salve, the lawyer representing India and Jadhav in the case at the ICJ, told that Pakistan's continued custody of Kulbhushan Jadhav without any consular access should be declared "unlawful" as it was an egregious violation of the Vienna Convention. Pakistan has used Jadhav to build a narrative against India, he told the court.

In the four-day hearing in the Jadhav case that opened Monday at the UN court headquarters in The Hague, India will reply on Pakistan's arguments on February 20 while Islamabad will make its closing submissions on February 21.

Also Read: Kulbhushan Jadhav case: Pakistan's story has been blurry on facts, says Harish Salve at ICJ

Attorney General for Pakistan, said Jadhav's activities were an actual manifestation of Indian policy. "Since 1947, India has pursued a policy of destroying Pakistan. Indian PM Narendra Modi is on record to have said using water as a weapon against Pakistan." Qureshi said India failed to explain why Jadhav was allowed to travel for 17 times on fake passport.

"India, I am sorry to say, has demonstrated a lack of faith throughout these proceedings... good faith is part of international law," lawyer Khawar Qureshi said.

"India doesn't know Pakistan, Pakistan is a state that has provided the largest contingent for peacekeeping, whose soldiers have lost lives in pursuing world security," he said.

"India's conduct and abusive process... India has deployed this process for political theatre," lawyer Qureshi said.

He told court that the Indian Navy officer was a "spy" and not a businessman adding that Jadhav was an "instrument of India's official policy of terror".

Kulbhushan Jadhav, 48, was a retired Indian Navy officer, who was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017. He was later allowed to meet his mother and wife after a long and arduous 22-month wait on December 25, 2017.

A 10-member bench of the ICJ, which was set up after World War II to resolve international disputes, on May 9, 2018, stayed the death sentence to Kulbhushan Jadhav after India had moved a petition before the UN body to seek justice for him, alleging violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by Pakistan.

(With inputs from PTI)

Edited by Chitranjan Kumar