Pakistan gives Indian High Commission 'second consular access' to Indian convicted of spying

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said two consular officers of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad were given access on Thursday to an Indian officer convicted of spying and sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court in 2017.
Kulbhushan Jadhav was arrested in March 2016 in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan, the site of a long-running conflict between security forces and separatists. He was convicted of planning espionage and sabotage and sentenced to death.
India says Jadhav is innocent. Last year the World Court ordered Pakistan to review the death penalty for Jadhav.
Last week, Pakistan’s foreign office said Jadhav had refused to file a review petition against the death sentence but Pakistan would offer him consular access for a second time.
“Two consular officers of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad were provided unimpeded and uninterrupted consular access to Commander Jadhav at 1500 hours,” the foreign office said in a statement on Thursday.
“First consular access under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) 1963 was earlier provided by Pakistan on 2 September 2019. The mother and wife of Commander Jadhav were also allowed to meet him on 25 December 2017.”
Pakistan authorities say Jadhav confessed to being ordered by India’s intelligence service to conduct espionage and sabotage in Balochistan, a province at the centre of a $60 billion Chinese-backed “Belt and Road” development project.
In a transcript released by Pakistan of what it says is Jadhav’s confession, the former naval officer says disrupting the Chinese-funded projects was a main goal of his activities.

Pakistan gives Indian High Commission 'second consular access' to Indian convicted of spying