Pakistani envoy Abdul Basit says Kulbhushan Jadhav is alive

India moved the International Court of Justice at The Hague, which then stayed the execution pending a final decision by the court.

New Delhi, May 23: Pakistan's High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit on Tuesday said that Kulbhushan Jadhav, the Indian national who was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on alleged espionage charges, is alive.

"I can assure that he is alive," Basit said in an interview to CNN News 18 TV channel. He said that an appeal sent by Jadhav's mother has been passed on by Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua.

Jadhav was allegedly arrested from Pakistan's restive Balochistan province on March 3, 2016. Pakistan claimed that the former Indian Navy officer confessed in a video that he was involved in spying and terror activities in Balochistan, a charge rejected by India. He was convicted in April by a Pakistani military court and sentenced to death.

India has maintained that Jadhav was abducted from Iran, where he was pursuing his business, and passed off as a spy.

Earlier this month, India moved the International Court of Justice at The Hague, which then stayed the execution pending a final decision by the court.

Basit described the Jadhav case as "highly sensitive". He also denied the beheading of two Indian soldiers by the Pakistan Army on the Line of Control. "Our army does not get involved in such things," he claimed.

The bodies of the Army's Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh and the BSF's Head Constable Prem Sagar were found mutilated on the LoC on May 1.

IANS