Pakistan lets family meet 'Indian spy'

Pakistan yesterday allowed the wife and mother of an Indian man convicted of spying to visit him in Islamabad, eight months after he was sentenced to death by a military court.

Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav, a former officer in the Indian navy, was arrested in March 2016 in the Pakistan province of Baluchistan, where there has been a long-running conflict between national security forces and militant separatists.

The case has added to tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours, who often accuse each other of violating a 2003 ceasefire along their disputed border in Kashmir, where the countries sometime engage in intense artillery duels.

Pakistan released a picture of Jadhav's mother, Avanti, and wife, Chetankul, seated at a desk and speaking to him from behind a glass window.

"The mother and wife of Commander Jadhav sitting comfortably in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Pakistan. We honour our commitments," a spokesman for Pakistan's foreign office, Mohammad Faisal, said in an earlier Twitter posting when the women first arrived at the ministry in Islamabad.

India's foreign affairs office has not responded to a request for comment on the meeting.