The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister says he was forced into the decision by two central ministers in 1989

IANS/New Delhi

Releasing five terrorists in exchange of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohamed Sayeed in 1989 was a grave mistake, former chief minister of the state Farooq Abdullah said.
Abdullah was speaking at a discussion during the formal release of the book, Kashmir - The Vajpayee Years by A S Dulat, former chief of Research and Analysis Wing on Tuesday.
Rubaiya Sayeed was kidnapped in 1989.
Abdullah said he was forced into the decision by two ministers Arif Mohamed Khan and I K Gujral.
“The then civil aviation minister Arif Mohamed Khan and external affairs minister I K Gujral came to meet me in Srinagar and I briefed them about the situation. I made it very clear that we have to fight terrorism. However, they told me that the cabinet has already taken the decision to release the five militants,” Abdullah recalled.
Lashing out at the decision, Abdullah said the central government had compromised the nation’s interest by releasing the terrorists. “I wouldn’t have released a single terrorist even if the militants had taken my daughter hostage. I asked the central ministers to give it in writing on behalf of the cabinet. I told them that this is the last nail in the coffin and we will never be able to recover from this,” he added.
Abdullah also came down heavily on the release of three hardcore militants in exchange of 184 passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999, another controversial revelation in the book. Abdullah said he was adamant in not releasing the terrorists, and he had expressed his reservations to the then deputy prime minister L K Advani as well as external affairs minister Jaswant Singh.
Abdullah said he felt Advani was being pushed into the decision of releasing the terrorists. “I told them we have to fight our battle against terrorism and we can’t go soft on it.”
When asked whether the central government was at fault in handling the situation, Abdullah said the aircraft should not have been allowed to leave Indian soil. “Everyone in the government was busy protecting their chair. What I feel strongly is that the aircraft should not have been allowed to leave the Indian soil,” he added.
Asked whether ransom was paid to get the passengers released Dulat that not a single penny was paid. “Not a rupee, a dollar was paid as ransom,” he said.
Dulat was posted in Kashmir as an Intelligence Bureau officer in 1988. Later on, he headed the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency, and then became adviser to prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, serving in government till 2004.
The book also said that Hizbul Mujahideen and United Jihad Council chief Syed Salahuddin once contacted the head of India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) in Srinagar K M Singh to ask for a seat in a medical college for his son which Abdullah, then the chief minister, arranged. Commenting on this, Abdullah said: “It was only an effort to bring them back to the mainstream.”
Another controversy which the book raised was that former prime minister Vajpayee in 2002 promised to make Abdullah vice-president, but later backtracked. When asked whether he felt cheated by the incident, Abdullah said that one has to move on in life.
“I did get hurt but one has to move ahead in life. It’s meaningless to get stuck in life with setbacks,” Abdullah said.
The former chief minister warned that the country needed to wake up to the threat of fundamentalism adding that the central government needed to trust Kashmiris. “They are not your enemies,” he said.
The book was mired in controversies much before its release.