Succumbing to Terrorists

The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government suspected Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Mehbooba Mufti of having links with the Hizbul Mujahideen and of even accepting “help” from the Kashmiri terror group during the 2002 elections,” says former RAW chief A.S Dulat in his soon-to-be-released memoir.

Mr. Dulat said the former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah wanted to resign over the Union government’s decision to release terrorists during the IC-814 hijack in 1999.

In the book titled Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years, Mr. Dulat, who had been a police officer with the Intelligence Bureau for three decades, chief of RAW from 1999-2000, and subsequently a special adviser on Kashmir in Prime Minister Vajpayee’s office, has made several explosive claims about the period.

“Ms. Mehbooba’s links and the support she received from the Jamaat-e-Islaami and the Hizbul Mujahideen during the 2002 elections when they [PDP] formed the government was well known at the time. In the PMO, it was talked about quite freely,” he told The Hindu ahead of the launch of the book.

In an interview to Karan Thapar’s “To The Point” programme on India Today TV, Mr. Dulat said Mr. Vajpayee and his National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra, had “grave doubts about Ms. Mehbooba” and refused to share the dais with her during a public rally in Srinagar in 2003.

He said Mr. Vajpayee had shared his concerns with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, warning the party against an alliance with the PDP in 2002. The Congress, however, disregarded the concerns. Ironically, it is the BJP that is in alliance with the PDP at present.

Asked about any lingering ties with the terror groups mentioned and the PDP, Mr. Dulat told The Hindu: “The Mehbooba of 2015 is more circumspect than she was in 2002, just as [PDP patron] Mufti Saheb is older, and more under pressure than he was then.” Ms. Mehbooba did not respond to The Hindu’s requests for her response to the allegations.

In his book, Mr. Dulat also writes of the “blunders” by the NDA government in the handling the IC-814 hijacking in 1999. When the Cabinet decided to give in to the hijackers’ demands for the release of terrorists like Masood Azhar and Omar Saeed Sheikh, the then Chief Minister, Farooq Abdullah, lost his temper and stormed off to see Governor G.C. Saxena. Dr. Abdullah wanted to quit, accusing the Centre of making a mess, but the Governor dissuaded him from doing so.

In another potentially explosive statement, Mr. Dulat told India Today TV that Mr. Vajpayee had disapproved of the handling of the Gujarat riots, and told Mr. Dulat “we made a mistake with Gujarat”.

What has been reported above has been suspected by me all along and had said the same in some of our earlier blogs.
In 1989, within few days of taking office as the Union Minister for Home Affairs, his third daughter Rubaiya was kidnapped by terrorists. She was released in exchange for the release of five militants.
Mohammad Sayeed has survived several attacks on his life by Kashmiri separatists who oppose Indian rule.
Years later Farooq Abdullah claimed that his government was threatened with dismissal by the central government if the militants were not exchanged for Rubaiya. The kidnapping set the stage for heightened militancy in the state. Many say the abduction was the watershed in the Kashmir insurgency. Releasing the militants was nothing short of a blunder. Had the V P Singh government not buckled down, things would have been different," they say, "The JKLF would not have harmed Rubaiya due to public sentiment. But then when the Home Minister's daughter is involved, how can the government act differently?
The result of this was that an Indian Airlines Flight from Delhi to Kathmandu was hijacked to Kandahr, Afganisthan in 2009.
If instead, we had followed the Israeli policy of not negoriating with terrorists, things would have worked out differently.

1976: Israelis rescue Entebbe hostages

Air France plane seized

The crisis began on 27 June, when four militants seized an Air France flight, flying from Israel to Paris via Athens, with 250 people on board.

The hijackers - two from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and two from Germany's Baader-Meinhof gang - diverted the plane to Entebbe, where it arrived on 28 June.

The hijackers - who were joined by three more colleagues - demanded the release of 53 militants held in jails in Israel and four other countries.

Uganda's President and dictator Idi Amin arrived at the airport to give a speech in support of the PFLP and supplied the hijackers with extra troops and weapons.

The hijackers then set a deadline for 1100GMT for their demands to be met or they would blow up the airliner and its passengers. But their plan was foiled by the dramatic Israeli raid.

At about 0100 local time (2200GMT), Ugandan soldiers and the hijackers were taken completely by surprise when three Hercules transport planes landed after a 2,500-mile trip from Israel.

About 200 elite troops ran out and stormed the airport building.

During a 35-minute battle, 20 Ugandan soldiers and all seven hijackers died along with three hostages.

Israeli commandos rescued 100 hostages, mostly Israelis or Jews, held by pro-Palestinian hijackers.

The leader of the assault force, Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, was also shot dead by a Ugandan sentry.

The Israelis destroyed 11 Russian-built MiG fighters, which amounted to a quarter of Uganda's air force.

The surviving hostages were then flown to Israel with a stopover in Nairobi, Kenya, where some of the injured were treated by Israeli doctors and at least two transferred to hospital there.

Speaking at the Israeli Knesset (parliament) this afternoon, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin who ordered the raid said: "This operation will certainly be inscribed in the annals of military history, in legend and in national tradition."