The petition should receive a minimum 100,000 signatures to get White House response.
A petition has been filed on the official website of the White House seeking the intervention from Trump for the release of former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav of India. Pakistan’s military court has awarded death sentence to Jadhav on charges of espionage.
The petition created by a user nicknamed S S on April 14 has garnered 12,511 signatures as of Sunday. It should receive another 87,489 signatures before May 14 to get an official response from White House. As per the rule, a petition requires minimum 100,000 signatures within a one month from the date of posting to qualify for a response from the US administration.
“This petition seeks justice for Mr. Kulbhushan Jadhav an Indian citizen and ex-naval officer aged about 46 years who was abducted from Iran and taken to Pakistan,” the petition read. “The said Mr. Kulbhushan Jadhav is awarded death sentence over charges of terrorism and spying for India’s Research and Analysis Wing, which is totally false and baseless.”
“The fact that India isn’t given consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav clearly proves the point that the charges over which death sentence is awarded to Kulbhushan Jadhav are false and fabricated,” it said.
“I humbly request appropriate and capable authorities to intervene in the matter and make sure that Mr. Kulbhushan Jadhav doesn’t get punished for the act which he never committed,” the petition added and it also urges United Nations to look into this matter.
Earlier, Pakistan army released a “confessional video” of Jadhav and claimed that he was arrested from the restive Balochistan province on March 3, last year. The Pakistani army claimed that Jadhav is a serving officer in the Indian Navy.
India acknowledged that Jadhav had served the navy but rejected the espionage charge and said that he doesn’t have any connection with the government.
A few months back another petition was lodged in the White House website urging President Donald Trump “to state clearly and unequivocally that he denounces” the killing of Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla in Olathe, Kansas.
Last year, The White House had archived the online petition that sought to designate Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism citing suspicion of signature fraud.