The Pakistan army brass decided after a discussion on Thursday that there would be no compromise on the issue of the death sentence awarded to retired Indian Navy commandant Kulbhushan Jadhav, an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the Pak army's media wing, said in a statement.
Also, the Pakistan foreign office officially acknowledged that one of its retired army officers was missing in Nepal.
bccl
The Jadhav issue was discussed at the corps commanders' conference held in the army's General Headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi and presided over by the chief of army staff, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.
The participants were briefed about Jadhav, who was sentenced to death by a field general court martial earlier this week, the ISPR presser said. The unprecedented April 10 decision has sparked a major diplomatic row between the two hostile neighbours.
bccl
The Pakistan authorities also warned against the linking of its missing ex-army officer in Nepal with the Jadhav issue, reacting to media reports in India and Pakistan.
Also Read:?Pakistan Just Sentenced Captured Former Indian Navy Officer Kulbhushan Jadhav To Death Without Proof
Addressing a weekly press briefing here, foreign office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said Col (retd) Muhammad Zahir Habib had been trapped in Nepal after being lured into a job offer without giving any more details. Zahir had disappeared last week from Lumbini, near Nepal's border with India, and is now suspected to be, according to media reports in Pakistan, in Indian custody.
bccl
Saying any comparison between the two was untenable, Pakistan's foreign office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said, "It's unreasonable to link the Jadhav case with Habib Zahir. The Indian spy is a serving Indian Navy officer who works for Indian spy agency RAW." Zakaria added that Zahir had retired from the army a long time before Jadhav's arrest.
"Pakistan has undeniable evidence against the Indian spy. He was caught red-handed planning espionage and subversive activities in the country and he has made confessions about his involvement in terrorist activities," the FO spokesperson said.
bccl
Zakaria also said that the disappearance of Habib points towards the involvement of the spy agency of a foreign country.
Also Read:?Kulbhushan Jadhav Isn't The First, Here Are 5 Indians Who Were Arrested By Pakistan For 'Spying'
"We are in touch with the Nepalese government to trace the missing ex-army officer and Nepal is cooperating in this regard," he said.
Participants of the corps commanders' meeting reviewed the security environment in Pakistan as well as the progress on Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad ¡ª a nationwide operation aimed at eliminating the "residual/latent threat of terrorism", which was launched in February after a deadly attack at a shrine in Sehwan.