Thursday, December 18, 2008 10:07 PM (New Delhi)
Defending the decision to free terrorists to rescue IC-814 hostages in 1999, senior BJP leader and former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh on Thursday said that if he faced the same predicament as the Kandahar hijacking he would take the same decision again. In an exclusive interview to NDTV India's Vijai Trivedi, Jaswant Singh, who was External Affairs Minister at the time of the Kandahar crisis, defended the decision. He said he has no regrets.
"Of course, it was the right decision. I will do the same thing if such a situation arises in future. Being tough does not mean letting people die. Or else, the entire society and India should stand up and say that we are willing to accept it if 166 people die," he said.
Singh's comments came under attack by the Congress with its spokesperson Manish Tiwari saying "if Singh does not consider the action taken by the NDA government in succumbing to the blackmail of the terrorists and escorting Masood Azhar and his other colleagues to Kandahar as wrong, then I do not understand as to how India will be able to dispel this perception that it is firm in combating terrorism."
Speaking to Editor-in-Chief of The Indian Express Shekhar Gupta on NDTV's Walk The Talk programme last year, BJP leader L K Advani had claimed he had no idea Jaswant Singh was planning to escort Masood Azhar to Kandahar.
The government accepted the demand to release the following terrorists in exchange for the release of the passengers and crew of flight IC 814.
The erstwhile Indian Minister for External Affairs, Jaswant Singh went personally to Kandahar to deliver the prisoners on a platter to the hijackers and receive the passengers back in exchange for a safe passage to the hijackers. To top it all Millions of dollars paid to the terrorists.
Jaswant Singh: No regrets for Kandahar swap
Hijacking description
All five hijackers have been identified
Information on hijacked Indian Airlines Flight IC-814
How Govt lost the IC-814 hijack deal
Comment: Truly an unbecoming conduct to free and accompany terrorists (same bad guys cause of Mumbai mayhem). Very unlike an Armoured Corps officer of the Indian Army. The ESM are ashamed. He would have been a hero had he battled with the terrorists rather than free them and award them millions of Dollars! Coward Politicians make weak Nations! He graciously retired from the army and it is time now for him to retire cowardly from politics.
No comments:
Post a Comment