International Court to deliver verdict on July 17 in Kulbhushan Jadhav case
New Delhi, Jul 4: The Hague-based International Court of Justice on Thursday said it will deliver on July 17 its verdict in the case relating to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, who is on death row in Pakistan.
Jadhav, a retired Indian Navy officer, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017. India approached the ICJ in May 2017 against Pakistan for denying consular access to Jadhav.
India had also challenged the "farcical trial" by the military court of Pakistan against 48-year-old Jadhav. The ICJ on May 18, 2017 had restrained Pakistan from executing Jadhav till adjudication of the case.
The ICJ, in a statement, said a public sitting will take place at 3 pm (6.30 pm IST) on July 17 at the Peace Palace in The Hague, during which Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, the President of the Court, will read out the verdict.
The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It was established by the UN charter in June 1945 and it began its activities in April 1946. The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague.
The court held a four-day public hearing in the case in February during which both India and Pakistan submitted their detailed pleas and responses.
India based its case on two broad issues breach of the Vienna Convention on consular access and the process of resolution. It also urged the ICJ to annul Jadhav's death sentence and order his immediate release, saying the verdict by a Pakistani military court based on a "farcical trial" and it failed to satisfy even the minimum standards of due process.
Pakistan on its part insisted that the Indian Navy officer was a "spy" and not a businessman.
Pakistan claims that its security forces arrested Jadhav from restive Balochistan province on March 3, 2016 after he reportedly entered from Iran
However, India maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy. Jadhav's sentencing had evoked a sharp reaction in India
Pakistan had rejected India's plea for consular access to Jadhav at the ICJ, claiming that New Delhi wants to get the information gathered by its "spy".
However, Pakistan facilitated a meeting of Jadhav with his mother and wife in Islamabad on December 25, 2017.
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Student found dead in hostel room in IIT Kharagpur
Kolkata (PTI): A 22-year-old M Tech student was found dead in his hostel room in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the second such incident reported on the campus within a span of 10 days.
The student, identified as Soham Haldar, was found hanging from the ceiling of his hostel room on Tuesday and he was immediately taken to the institute hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead, an IIT Kharagpur official said.
Haldar, a dual-degree student in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, was a boarder of the Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Hall of Residence on the campus.
Police from the Kharagpur Town police station have initiated a probe into the incident as preliminary findings indicated that it could be a case of suicide, though the exact cause of death will be ascertained following the post-mortem examination, the official said.
In a statement, the institute expressed deep grief over the student's death and said a detailed inquiry has been initiated.
The authorities have informed the family and are extending all possible assistance to them, it added.
Director Suman Chakraborty told PTI that the institute will strengthen the mechanism to identify stressed-out and depressed students and take follow-up steps to address their issues.
The grief-stricken parents of the student, who hailed from Barasat in North 24 Parganas district, have come to the campus and the authorities will speak to them, he said.
"Haldar's friends, faculty and staffers also could not gauge any stress or anxiety in him. But we need to enable students suffering from anxiety and extreme stress to open up their minds and do everything needed to prevent such incidents," he said.
Investigators are also scrutinising CCTV footage from the hostel premises to piece together the sequence of events leading to the incident.
The incident comes close on the heels of another student's death reported on April 18, when 21-year-old Jaibir Singh Dodia, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student from Ahmedabad, allegedly died after jumping from the eighth floor of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hall of Residence. That case is also under investigation.
The back-to-back incidents have once again brought the issue of mental health and student support systems at the institute into focus, especially in view of several such cases reported last year.
