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Advani not in favour of releasing terrorists, trust deficit with Delhi is a big issue: Farooq Abdullah

By FnF Desk | PUBLISHED: 22, Jul 2015, 14:17 pm IST | UPDATED: 22, Jul 2015, 14:20 pm IST

Advani not in favour of releasing terrorists, trust deficit with Delhi is a big issue: Farooq Abdullah New Delhi: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah has said he didn't feel that Lal Krishna Advani was in favour of releasing the terrorists during the IC-814 aircraft hijack in 1999, adding it seemed that the then deputy prime minister was being pushed into it.

Farooq Abdullah warned that trust deficit with Delhi is resulting in radicalisation of the youth in Kashmir and that the trend needs to stopped, failing which it may lead to problems bigger than what was seen in early 1990s.

"Let me be very honest, from Advani ji's voice, I felt he wasn't in favour of this. I felt that he was pushed into it," Abdullah said while speaking at a book release function.

Abdullah also said that the release had shown India as a 'weak nation'.

Air India flight IC-814, which was enroute from Kathmandu to New Delhi, was hijacked by the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen terrorist group in 1999 and taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan via New Delhi and Amritsar.

The crisis lasted for a week and ended after India agreed to release three militants - Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Maulana Masood Azhar.

Speaking at the release a book - "Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years" - written by former RAW Chief A S Dulat, Abdullah, who has been actively participating in day-to-day politics in the state after his long illness, spoke on various issues related to Kashmir and the Centre's approach over the years towards the state.

"As I have always said that don't mistrust us, don't push us to the wall, we will die as Indians. I have always said that and I will continue to say that till I go to the grave and face my God," Abdullah said.

Asked whether autonomy was a way to move forward in solving the Kashmir issue, he said at least this is a road. "Where we reach is up to the discussions that we will have," he said.

Referring to a statement made by the author, who served as OSD on Kashmir in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, that educated youth are getting swayed by militancy, Abdullah said, "Trust deficit between Srinagar and Delhi is a major contributor for this. Let me warn, today's generation and Farooq Abdullah's generation are different... My generation agreed with little but today's generation needs results faster and better."

Abdullah spoke about growing fundamentalism in almost all religions, and said, "India is in tremendous danger, the fallouts are going to be miserable if we don't wake up against the growth of fundamentalism in various forms in almost all religions, that is going to be death for those of us who believe that we are a nation."

"And I hope those people in power whether at the Centre or in the states realise that we are dying but the nation will go on, let us steer it towards a better future," he said.