Pakistan on Tuesday claimed that Kulbhushan Jadhav’s wife’s shoes were confiscated as “there was something” in them, Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal told Dawn. The woman had travelled with her mother-in-law to Islamabad on December 25 to meet the former Indian Navy officer.
In a statement on Tuesday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs had said that the women were asked to remove their mangalsutra, bangles and bindis and also change their clothes. “For some inexplicable reason, despite her repeated requests, the shoes of his wife were not returned to her after the meeting,” the ministry had said.
Faisal said she had been provided with spare pair of shoes and added that all her jewellery was returned to her.
On Wednesday, the Pakistan Foreign Office rejected India’s “baseless” allegations and said it does not wish to indulge in a “meaningless battle of words”.
“If Indian concerns were serious, the guests or the Indian deputy high commissioner should have raised them during the visit, with the media, which was readily available, but at a safe distance, as requested by India,” it said in a statement, according to PTI. “Our openness and transparency belies these allegations.”
Pakistan was criticised for forcing the family, meeting after months, to speak through an intercom with a glass wall between them. Faisal had earlier justified it, saying the glass barrier was needed for security reasons.
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