Parliament in one voice on Thursday condemned the treatment meted out to the mother and the wife of Kulbhushan Jadhav in Islamabad on Monday and backed the Government’s efforts to secure his release. Terming the attitude of Pakistani authorities as “absurdity beyond measure”, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said in both the Houses that human rights of Jadhav’s relatives were violated by “obnoxious behaviour” of Pakistan.
She also said Pakistan portrayed the meeting of death-row prisoner Jadhav with his mother Avantika and wife Chetna as a “humanitarian” gesture but the “truth is that both humanity and compassion were missing” the way they conducted the meeting.
Pakistan deviated from the agreed understanding with India and misused “the emotional moment between a mother and her son, and a wife and her husband after a period of 22 months” as an instrument to “further its propaganda”, she said.
This observation was in apparent reference to Islamabad allowing the media close access and resultant heckling of Jadhav’s mother and wife by some newspersons despite earlier pact not to permit the media during the meeting.
Moreover, the two married women were forced to remove their “mangalsutra,” shoes, “bindis” and bangles in the name of security. Sushma said this amounted to presenting the two women as widows to their son, and informed Parliament that her Ministry conveyed its concerns through diplomatic channel to Pakistan on Wednesday. She also labelled the military court awarding death sentence to Jadhav as “farcical trial” and said the Indian Government had earlier successfully stalled the sentence through a stay granted by the International Court of Justice.
Cutting across party lines, the MPs condemned Pakistan’s behaviour. In the Rajya Sabha, leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said the forceful removal of “mangalsutra” and “bindi” was an insult to 130 crore Indians. Almost all Elders said Pakistan crossed all boundaries of civilised behaviour.
The Opposition exercised restraint while expressing its views after Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu urged them to appreciate the sensitivities attached with Jadhav’s case.
He is in jail in another country with the Government making efforts get him back safely and therefore the House should take all care not to jeopardise the efforts, Naidu said.
Apprising Parliament about the meeting, Sushma said Jadhav’s mother told her that as soon as her son saw her without ‘mangalsutra,’ he asked “Baba kaise hain (how is father).” The Minister said Jadhav might have feared that “something bad has happened” back home. Normally, a Hindu woman does not wear ‘mangalsutra’ and ‘bindi’ after the death of her husband.
After the meeting, Pakistani authorities also did not return the shoes of Jadhav’s wife despite repeated requests. Sushma said not returning the shoes has given rise to suspicion that Pakistan was up to some “mischief,” adding “the Pakistan authorities have been cautioned against any mischievous intent in this regard through a Note Verbale on Wednesday, “ she said.
In case, any chip or camera was detected in the shoes, the Pakistan authorities would have made a big “tamasha” of it when the media was heckling the two women through offensive language and motivated accusations, Sushma said.
The Minister said Jadhav’s mother and wife were taken for the meeting through a separate door without informing the accompanying Deputy High Commissioner of India, After they were stripped of their ‘bindi,’ bangles and ‘mangalsutra,’ they were made change their clothes. The elder woman, who generally wears sari, was made to put on a salwar suit, said Sushma, adding if the Indian diplomat was present he would have protested. Also, the meeting started before he could reach the designated room, she said.
She said the two women, on their return from Islambad, had conveyed to her that Jadhav appeared under considerable stress and was speaking in an atmosphere of coercion. “As the meeting progressed, it was clear to them that his (Jadhav’s) remarks were tutored by his captors and designed to perpetuate the false narrative of his alleged activities. His appearance also raised questions of his health and well-being,” she said.
Sushma said while Jadhav’s mother wanted to talk to her son in mother tongue Marathi, she was not allowed to do so. Moreover, she was repeatedly interrupted by the two Pakistani officials present in the meeting. When she persisted, the intercom was switched off and she was prevented from proceeding further with the conversation in Marathi, the Minister said. Besides this, the car of the family of Jadhav and accompanying Indian diplomat was delayed after the meeting so as to give another opportunity to the media to harass them, she said.
Ram Gopal Yadav (SP), Derek O’Brien (TMC), Harivansh (JD-U), Dilip Tirkey (BJD), Tapan Kumar Sen (CPM), T Devendra Goud (TDP), Veer Singh (BSP), Thiruchi Siva (DMK), D Raja (CPI), Sukhdev Singh Dindsa (Akali Dal), Abdul Wahab (IMl), Sanjay Raut (Shiv Sena), Bhupendra Yadav (BJP) and Ram Das Athavale (RPI) supported the government in the matter.
