A video released by the Congress claimed that the release of Masood Azhar, the founder of the terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed was a political decision on the part of the BJP after the Congress had arrested him.
New Delhi: In a video released by Congress of a 2010 interview of international security advisor Ajit Doval, Congress blamed the BJP for the release of Jaish–e-Mohammad founder Masood Azhar.
The video claimed that the release of Masood Azhar, the founder of the terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed, was a political decision on the part of the BJP after the Congress had arrested him.
Rahul Gandhi and the opposition blamed the BJP for releasing him during the Kandahar swap after the hijack of the Indian Airline IC814.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said that in the interview Ajit Doval had 'spilled the beans' after he called the release of Azhar a 'political decision'. Doval also claimed to have not agreed with the decision to release Azhar.
Reacting to Congress's statement, Union minister Jitendra Singh said that Rahul Gandhi was a victim of selective learning of history, while Farooq Abdullah was a victim of selective recall of history, When the Kandahar incident happened, there was a demand from the entire country for securing the release of the hostages and the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government held talks with all opposition parties and moved ahead after getting their consent, he added.
Singh also said that among the opposition leaders, the first meeting took place with Rahul's mother (Sonia Gandhi) which meant she was then equally responsible.
Rahul Gandhi had earlier faced backlash by the BJP for addressing Masood Azhar as ji in his latest talk and Congress sought to attack back. Hence, as a retort, it released a video of Union Minister Ravi Shankar addressing Hafiz Saeed (LeT chief) with the same term of respect in a press conference. Congress also demanded Narendra Modi and his ministers to admit that they were anti-national while freeing a terrorist.
The UPA government in 2004 had created a strict "no concessions" policy for hijacking and said that the Doval interview was admirable as he accepted the policy as ‘being nationalistic towards tackling terror'. Spokesperson Surjewala also questioned Modi as to why he was not "showing the same guts".
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