India on Friday dismissed as “imaginary lies” Pakistan’s statement claiming that they had received a proposal for a prisoner swap, referring to former Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif had said on Wednesday that the national security advisor of Afghanistan had offered to hand over the militant who had attacked a school in Peshawar in 2014 in exchange for Jadhav. But he did not identify the official.
The office of Afghan National Security Advisor Mohammad Haneef Atmar, however, issued a statement on Friday, saying there had been no mention of any Indian citizen during Atmar’s meeting with Asif on September 21 in New York, PTI reported.
Referring to the Afghan statement, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said Asif’s claim was just another “addition to the long list of imaginary lies and stories created by the Pakistani establishment”.
“You have seen what happened at the United Nations General Assembly – how a fake picture was shown to be from India, but it turned out to be from another country,” Kumar was quoted as saying by IANS. “So another lie has been added to a series of lies.”
In March 2016, Pakistani officials had arrested Jadhav. They had accused him of spying for India’s Research and Analysis Wing and aiding separatist elements in restive Balochistan. In April 2017, a Pakistani martial court sentenced him to death.
India, however, has maintained that Jadhav was merely a former naval officer who retired in 2002, not a spy.
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