Both the former Chief Minister of JK and his politician son hold the then Prime Minister Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee and his Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani responsible for the release of the Jaishe-e-Mohammed founder, Moulana Masood Azher in December 1999.
Spilling the beans on August 27, Dr. Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah, who was a Central Minister at that time, have maintained they had “serious reservations” on the release of the terrorists. Now both deny their role and we believe in them.
The point is: At whose behest or order the terrorists were freed? Did and could anybody bypass the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister?
Would the ever-wilting lotus care to be painted pink? Even after this painting, they will have to explain their case, at least before their critics. In view of the hijacking of I.C. 814 to Kandahar, carrying 167 hostages, the pressure of the Centre on the Chief Minister was enormous. Should we infer that 167 for just seven is not a bad bargain – that because of that back-breaking New Delhi pressure, the father-son duo did not resign?
In case they had resigned, what would have happened? We feel the standard bearers of pseudo-patriotism and nationalism like Mr. S.K. Sudarshan, Mr. L.K. Advani, Dr. Praveen Togadia and Vinay Katiyar would have paled into insignificance and would have remained pale for a longer period of time, as happened, unfortunately with the late lamented Mr. Jawahar Lal Nehru and Sardar Patel, who, behind the back of the politically upright, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and to an extent Mahatma Gandhi, agreed to the partition of Bharat in 1947