Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah spoke about the difficult decisions that had to be taken by his father, Farooq Abdullah during the IC814 hijacking incident in 1999. Highlighting the tough decisions faced by his father during that time, he said that the IC814 hijack was not the first case where his father was forced to release prisoners.
Farooq Abdullah was reportedly hesitant about releasing Jaish-e-Mohommad chief Masood Azhar from Kot Balwal jail in 1999.
In an interview, Former Chief of the Indian foreign intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), Amarjit Singh had also mentioned that once the release of prisoners Masood and Zargar was decided, the then Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah, had opposed it, warning Dulat of the long-term consequences, but eventually agreed to the demands of the Centre.
In an interview, Abdullah mentioned a previous case involving Rubaiya Syed, the daughter of former Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who was kidnapped by Kashmiri separatists in 1989. Back then, the Central Government, led by VP Singh, had released five jailed terrorists of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in exchange for Rubaiya’s safe release.
“This is the second time my father was forced to release people. With Rubaiya Syed and families of the hijacked victims, they used the Rubaiya Syed incident as the benchmark. They said when you could release terrorists for a home minister’s daughter, is our family not precious? Why is it only she is precious to the country? Then if she is precious to you, then our family is precious to us. So we set a benchmark that had to be followed,” Abdullah told ANI.
Currently, the IC814 hijack has become a controversial amidst the concerns about the names of terrorists being used in the Anubhav Sinha directed series on Netflix, “IC814: The Kandahar Hijack.”
The former J&K Chief Minister further emphasised that the precedent set during the Rubaiya Syed incident became a benchmark for the families of the hijacked individuals, who demanded equal consideration and safety during the IC814 hijack in 1999.
Abdullah further said, “I think Government of India had an option. I think Government of India at the Rubaiya Syed kidnapping time had the option of not negotiating with terrorists. They chose to negotiate. After that, once you’ve done it once, then you have to do it again.”
Speaking about the execution of Afzal Guru, Omar Abdullah clarified that the Jammu and Kashmir government had no involvement in the process. He stated that if state approval had been required, it would not have been granted.
“The unfortunate thing was that the J&K government had nothing to do with Afzal Guru’s execution. Otherwise, you would have had to do it with the permission of the state government, which I can tell you in no uncertain terms would not have been forthcoming. We wouldn’t have done it. I don’t believe that any purpose was served by executing him,” Abdullah added.
(with ANI inputs)
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