An image on a screen at a news conference held by the Pakistani army in 2016 regarding the Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was sentenced to death on Monday. Credit Anjum Naveed/Associated Press
Kulbhushan Jadhav, an Indian naval officer charged with espionage and sabotage in Pakistan was sentenced to death on Monday, confirmed General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the army chief.
The naval officer was arrested back in March 2016 in Baluchistan, the restive province in Southwest Pakistan and was tried as a spy through Field General Court-Martial, dedicated to cases of heinous crimes involving foreign agents and spies.
The Pakistani military said that Mr. Jadhav confessed before a magistrate that he was assigned by India’s spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, “to plan and organize espionage and sabotage activities” in Baluchistan Province and Karachi. A video with his confession was released shortly after his arrest in 2016.
The decision will most likely worsen the relations between the two nations.
The Indian ministry of external affairs reacted immediately to the announcement and issued a protest to Pakistan’s high commissioner in New Delhi, which said if the sentence were carried out, “the government and people of India will regard it as a case of premeditated murder.”
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