American experts on South Asian countries have raised questions about the death sentence awarded to former Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav on charges of terrorism and espionage, reported PTI on Wednesday. They suspect that the death penalty by the country’s military Field General Court Martial is meant to send a “strong message” to Delhi.

A former senior State Department official in its South and Central Asia Bureau, Alyssa Ayres, said the speedy trial in Jadhav’s case was a stark contrast to the “endless postponements for that of the Mumbai attackers”. “The latter case, by contrast, has been in a continual state of prolongation for nearly nine years,” the senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, a top United States think-tank, told PTI.

The Director of South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC, Bharat Gopalaswamy, called the evidence against Jadhav “rather flimsy” and said Pakistan’s story in the case did not add up and seemed “politically motivated”.

Senior associate and deputy director for Stimson’s South Asia program, Sameer Lalwani, thinks the decision to hang Jadhav did not seem to be in Pakistan’s self-interest, though he believes that it is an attempt to use the former Navy officer as a bargaining chip. “If Jadhav posed a threat and Pakistan wanted to send a deterrent signal to potential saboteurs of CPEC and Gwadar, they could have executed him months ago after his intelligence value had been exhausted,” he said. “If Pakistan wanted to exploit Jadhav’s capture for diplomatic purposes by showcasing evidence of Indian sub conventional aggression, Pakistan still has yet to convince the international community and an execution raises suspicions.”

Deputy director and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Michael Kugelman, said the whole story is shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. “But it seems clear that Pakistan wants to send a very strong message to India, whether to warn Delhi against meddling in Pakistan or to push back in a big way against India’s efforts to isolate Pakistan on the world stage,” he said. “At the same time, given how much India will want to ensure that Jadhav isn’t executed, Pakistan now has a very large bargaining chip at its disposal. Pakistan may want to use Yadav as a trump card to get some type of major concessions from India.”

He said the development indicated that India-Pakistan relations were on “life support”. “We can kiss goodbye any immediate prospects for resuming dialogue, though that wasn’t a very strong possibility even before the announcement about Yadav’s death sentence,” Kugelman said. “Ultimately, India and Pakistan face some very dark and dangerous days ahead.”

Pakistan on Tuesday said Kadhav had 60 days to appeal against the death sentence. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has cautioned Pakistan against the consequences its bilateral ties with India will face if it goes through with the death penalty.

In retaliation to Islamabad’s provocative move, India on Monday had decided against releasing 12 Pakistani prisoners who were to be repatriated last week. The government felt that this was not the right time to release them. Both countries follow the practice of sending back nationals lodged in each other’s jails after they complete their sentences.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar had summoned Pakistani High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit and issued a demarche, saying the proceedings leading up to the death sentence for Jadhav were “farcical”.