NEW DELHI: Indian External Affairs Ministry on Monday has taken a new stand in Kulbhushan Yadav case. As the news of the death sentence reached India, India reacted with a surprise new stance that Kulbhushan Yadev was not arrested from Pakistan rather kidnapped from Iran.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs on Monday summoned Pakistan’s High Commissioner Abdul Basit, protesting against the sentencing of Indian agent Kulbushan Jadhav to death.

“If the death sentence, issued to the ‘former’ Indian Navy official, is carried out, it will be a ‘premeditated murder,’” the Indian media quoted the ‘diplomatic note’ as saying.

After meeting the officials, Abdul Basit rejected Indian objections to the RAW agent’s death sentence, saying the country’s national security is Islamabad’s utmost priority.

“You can’t sponsor terrorism and then summon an ambassador to protest over the sentence of terrorists. Nothing matters more than national security,” he said. Basit said that Pakistan has done nothing wrong in giving death sentence to a terrorist.

Our desire for peace in the region must not be taken as our weakness,” he said.

Earlier, India lodged a ‘formal protest’ with Pakistan over Kulbhushan’s death sentence and announced that in case the punishment was carried out it will regard it as premeditated murder’.

According to a statement, Indian foreign secretary summoned Abdul Basit to handover a demarche on the issue.

The Indian demarche claimed that Kulbhushan was ‘kidnapped’ last year from Iran and his subsequent presence in Pakistan has never been explained credibly, it said.

Pakistan sentenced the Indian agent to death for carrying out espionage and sabotage activities in Balochistan and Karachi.

The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has said that the accused was provided with a defending officer as per legal provisions.