In another video, released on Thursday by the Pakistani government, convicted Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav has accused the Indian government of threatening and harassing his mother and wife when they met him last month. The new video, apparently filmed following his meeting with his family on December 25 and released by the Foreign Office at its weekly media briefing, shows Jadhav in a relaxed mood.
"Basically, today my mother came over, and I am thankful to the Government of Pakistan for showing this grand gesture and allowing this meeting. It was a very pleasant one and my mother was, basically, very happy to see me in a good state and my physical fitness," Jadhav said in the video. Jadhav said his mother was "very satisfied" to see him "physically fit," and was "very satisfied and she also said 'I'm feeling very relaxed after seeing you.'"
In the previous video he is sitting on a chair but the new video shows him standing as he speaks. His mother, Avanti Yadhav, said a prayer for him, he recounts, and "I said [to her], don't worry Mummy, now you are happy. You might have heard so many things. My diet is very good..." His mother was satisfied "once she saw me personally."
Jadhav accused Indian Deputy High Commissioner J.P. Singh of harassing his mother and wife before the meeting took place. Denying that he suffered any physical torture by Pakistani security forces, he stated, "They have been taking care of me. They haven't harmed me. They've not touched me."
"I have something very important to say here to the Indian public, Indian crowd, the government and the people in [the Indian] Navy: that my commission is not gone. I'm a commissioned officer of Indian Navy and my mother and wife have been briefed very strongly...I saw fear in the eyes of my mother and my wife. Why should there be fear? Whatever has happened has happened," he said. "There should not be fear in the eyes of my mother and wife...they have been threatened," he added.
"We, India and Pakistan, are supposed to subsequently forget our enmity and go in a positive direction, or [is the enmity] supposed to linger around like this?" he said. He demanded to know why his navy commission is denied by the Indian government when he was working for the RAW before he was apprehended by Pakistani security agencies in Balochistan.
"What's the whole issue? Okay, I was doing a cover business, that's okay. I stand by that...that I was doing something for RAW, and I'm a soldier and I was doing something for my country and I have done this...," he said. Yadhav said: "I am thankful to both the governments, Indian and Pakistani. But I am really feeling very sad that my mother was in a very bad and threatened position."
Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal, asked by reporters if he could give details regarding Indian diplomats' alleged threatening attitude to Jadhav's mother, said "the video shared [shown] answers to all the questions related to Commander Jhadev, for the time being." Commenting on Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik's open letter to Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, the spokesman said it "lays bare the hypocritical political gimmickry employed by India to distort the humanitarian gesture of Pakistan."
Commenting on the US threats to take unilateral steps such as drone strikes in Pakistan, he said, "An appropriate response would be given" to such actions. He did not give any details on US ambassador David Hale's being summoned to the Foreign Office after US president Donald Trump's tweet. He only said the cabinet's national security committee and the foreign and defence ministers have already given an appropriate response to the tweet.
About transit trade with Afghanistan, he said, "We are aware that some elements are deliberately spreading false news of decline in Pak-Afghan bilateral trade and shifting of Afghan transit trade to other countries." He said trade between the two countries has seen a robust growth during the 2016-17 financial year compared to that in 2015-16, and the bulk of Afghan transit trade still goes through Pakistan.
Pakistan's exports to Afghanistan between November 2016 and October 2017 witnessed a rise of nine percent rise over the corresponding period in the previous fiscal. At the same time, he added, Afghan exports to Pakistan showed a phenomenal growth of 118.25 percent from October 2016 to September 2017, compared to the same period in 2015-16. The two sides seek an early convening of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Co-ordination Authority, he said, and this will further facilitate transit trade between the two neighbours.
He rejected the report that China is going to establish a military base near Gwadar Port. "This is all propaganda against the development of CPEC and strengthening of relations between Pakistan and China," he added. Commenting on the situation in Iran, he said "this is an internal matter of Iran and we are confident that the Iranian government can adequately handle the situation in accordance with the interests of the Iranian people."
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