RAWALPINDI: A military court in Pakistan has sentenced an Indian RAW agent Kulbhushan Yadav to death for carrying out espionage and sabotage activities in Balochistan and Karachi, the ISPR said Monday.
Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa has confirmed death sentence awarded by the FGCM under the Pakistan Army Act (PAA).
According to an ISPR press release, Kulbhusan Sundir Yadav alias Hussein Mubarak Patel was arrested on March 3, 2016, through a Counter-Intelligence Operation from Mashkel area of Balochistan for his involvement in espionage and sabotage actives in Pakistan.
Yadav was believed to be an on-duty officer for the Indian Navy and confessed his crimes in a recorded video statement televised by the ISPR last year following his arrest.
“The spy has been tried through Field General Court martial (FGCM) under Pakistan Army Act (PAA) and awarded death sentence. Today COAS, General Qamar Javed Bajwa has confirmed death sentence awarded by FGCM.
“RAW agent Commander Kulbushan Sundir Jadhav was tired under GGCM under section 59 of Pakistan Army Act (PAA) 1952 and Section 3 of official Secret Act of 1923.
“The FGCM found Yadhav guilty of all charges. He confessed before a Magistrate and the Court that he was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organise espionage/sabotage activities aiming to destablise and wage war against Pakistan by impeding the efforts of Law Enforcement Agencies for restoring peace in Balochistan and Karachi,” said the press release.
The accused was provided with a defending officer as per legal provisions, the ISPR added.
The military has not yet announced any date for the execution.
India has long had a history of fanning terrorism inside Pakistan by sponsoring terrorist outfits in Balochistan, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and Karachi.
Islamabad has said that the case of Kulbhushan Yadav substantiates India’s continued involvement in subversive activities in Pakistan.
Earlier this year, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi handed over a dossier to United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres detailing evidence of Indian subversive activities within Pakistani territory.
The dossier contained Yadav’s confessional statement, and related documents and evidence of Indian interference in Balochistan. Video evidence of an Indian Navy submarine sneaking into Pakistani waters on November 18, 2016 was also part of the dossier.
The dossier also included proof of contacts of Indian intelligence officials, working under diplomatic cover at Indian High Commission in Islamabad, with terrorists. Pakistan, in the dossier, urged the United Nations to prevent India from attempting to destablise it.
Investigations after Yadav’s arrest last year had revealed that the undercover Indian agent’s main agenda was to sabotage the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through propaganda and to create disharmony among the Baloch nationalist political parties.
The death sentence follows the mysterious disappearance last week of a retired Pakistan Army officer, who went missing while visiting Nepal for a job interview.
Lt Col Mohammad Habib has been reported missing since April 6 from Lumbini, a Nepalese town near the Indian border. The foreign office and the officer’s family have confirmed his disappearance.
Yadav is not the first RAW operative caught snooping in Pakistan
Prior to Kulbhushan, a good number of Indian spies have been spotted and hand-cuffed in Pakistan during the course of country’s enmity with its neighbouring nation.
The most notable among dozens of Indian spies caught in Pakistan included Ravindra Kaushik (1952–1999), who was sent across the border in 1975 on a mission at the age of 23 after extensive training in Delhi for two years. Kaushik succeeded in getting a civilian clerk’s job in the Military Accounts Department of the Pakistan Army and kept on passing valuable information to RAW from 1979 to 1983.
Another famous RAW agent Sarabjit Singh (also known as Manjit Singh) was convicted of terrorism and spying by the Pakistan Supreme Court for a series of bomb attacks that had killed 14 people in Lahore and Faisalabad during 1990.
