Who is Kulbhushan Jadhav?

“My name is Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav and I am the serving officer of Indian Navy,” reads the first paragraph of the Indian spy’s confessional statement.

A resident of Mumbai's suburban Powai neighbourhood, Jadhav belongs to a family of police officers.

Jadhav belongs to the cadre of the engineering department of Indian Navy and took the cover name Hussein Mubarik Patel for intelligence gathering for Indian agencies, his statement says.

He added that he joined the National Defence Academy in 1987, and subsequently the Indian Navy in 1991, where he served until around December 2001.

In his statement, the Indian national said he is currently a serving officer in the Indian navy, due to retire by 2022. India denied the claim.

The India Foreign Office stated that the man is a former Indian navy officer.

Sources close to his family told The Indian Express that Jadhav had sought premature retirement from the Indian Navy to start his own business and travelled around the world in connection with his business.

The Indian spy said he commenced intelligence operations in 2003, and established a business in Chahbahar, Iran, where he remained undetected and visited Karachi in 2003 and 2004.

He was picked up by Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) at the end of 2013 and has been directing various subversive activities in Karachi and Balochistan.

His objective, he stated, was to hold meetings with Baloch insurgents and collaboratively carry out terrorist activities.

“These activities have been of criminal nature, leading to killing of or maiming of Pakistani citizens,” Jadhav’s statement reads.

In pursuit of targets set by RAW handlers, the Indian national was apprehended by Pakistani authorities on March 3, 2016, while trying to cross over into Pakistan from the Saravan border in Iran.

India, however, alleges that Jadhav was abducted by Pakistan from Iran, according to India Today.

Indian intelligence officials suspected that Jadhav's phone was under surveillance by the Pakistani intelligence and that his habits and mannerisms, including phone calls in Marathi to his family, gave away his identity.

Pakistan denied consular access to Jadhav since after his arrest, although he was provided with a defending officer as per legal provisions during his Field General Court Martial (FGCM) trial.

He was sentenced to death by the FGCM on April 10, 2017.