Pakistan allows Kulbhushan Jadhav to meet his wife

Pakistan has allowed Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, currently on death row, a meeting with his wife.

The gesture has been made ‘purely on humanitarian grounds,’ a press release issued by Pakistan’s foreign affairs ministry declared on Friday.

It said that the Indian High Commission in Islamabad has been informed of the decision. Pakistani foreign affairs ministry mentioned that this request has been granted months after India’s foreign affairs ministry had first raised it with Pakistan.

The Indian government has been trying to arrange a meeting of Jadhav with his family since July and had moved a visa application for his mother, but Pakistan had not reciprocated at the time. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had even written a “personal letter” to Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz asking for approval of visa application of Jadhav’s mother so that she may travel to Pakistan.

Pakistan has also turned down at least 15 Indian requests for consular access to Jadhav since his arrest last year and India says that this was in violation of the Vienna Convention.