Kulbhushan Jadhav's death sentence: Nawaz Sharif discusses Indian national case with Pakistan Army chief

Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Wednesday discussed the International Court of Justice's stay order on the execution of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, media reports said.

During the meeting, which lasted for around 90 minutes, Sharif was briefed on the "latest situation" regarding Jadhav's case, the Geo News reported.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) yesterday stayed the execution of 46-year-old Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of "spying".

The order by the Hague-based ICJ came a day after India approached it against the death sentence handed down to Jadhav by Pakistan's Field General Court Martial last month.

India, in its appeal to the ICJ, accused Pakistan of "egregious" violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and asserted that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he was involved in business activities after retiring from the Indian Navy but Pakistan claimed to have arrested him from Balochistan on March 3, 2016.

In the meeting, Sharif and Bajwa also discussed other issues including the Dawn leaks controversy and Pak-Afghan relations, the channel said.

The meeting between the army chief and the premier is the second one within a week and is significant in light of the civil-military row over Dawn's leaked report that had angered the powerful army.

On May 6, Prime Minister Sharif had met the army chief and both discussed the Dawn Leaks issue, among other things.
Sharif and the army chief had agreed that the issues surrounding Dawn leaks would be dealt with amicably.

In October, a columnist for Dawn newspaper wrote a front-page story about a rift between civilian and military leaderships over militant groups that operate from Pakistan but engage in proxy war against India and Afghanistan.

The army took strong exception to the Dawn story. The military had called the leak of the meeting a breach of national security and urged strong, punitive action against those responsible for leaking information to the newspaper.