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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday addressed the Parliament about the meeting that former Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav had with his wife and mother in Pakistan.
The meeting was not consular access, as India had requested, but was done by Pakistan on “humanitarian grounds”, as Swaraj said in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
Swaraj called the meeting a “propaganda tool” by Pakistan.
The women were asked to remove their bangles, mangalsutra and bindis as Pakistan cited “security reasons”.
Swaraj said that due procedure had not been followed and the meeting began without the Deputy High Commissioner being present. Had he seen that the women were being asked to change their garments, he would have “registered a protest there and then,” Swaraj stated.
Jadhav’s wife’s shoes were kept by the Pakistani side and were not returned to her, even after the meeting had ended.
Swaraj said that the meeting cannot be called a humanitarian gesture when an atmosphere of fear was perpetuated for everyone.
After their meeting was concluded, videos also showed Pakistani journalists heckling the women, calling Jadhav a “killer of thousands of Pakistanis”. It had been agreed upon by both India and Pakistan that media will not be present when the meeting takes place.
The family was also not allowed to speak with Jadhav in their native Marathi, but when his mother continued to speak in it, the two Pakistani officials present switched off her intercom.
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