Tell families of CRPF martyrs that NSA Doval was deal maker who handed over Masood Azhar to Pak: Rahul to Modi

New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi cornered PM Narendra Modi over Pulwama terror attack and told him to inform the families of 40 CRPF martyrs about who released their murderer, Masood Azhar. He further said the PM should also tell the family members of the martyred jawans that the current NSA Ajit Doval was the deal maker who went to Kandahar to hand over Azhar back to Pakistan.

Indian Airlines flight IC 814, with 176 passengers and 15 crew members on board, was hijacked by terrorists from Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, a Pakistan-based terror group primarily active in Kashmir, with the tacit support of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).  

The decision to hijack the plane was taken to secure the release of terrorist Masood Azhar and two others.

Journalist Myra Macdonald in her book ‘Defeat is an Orphan: How Pakistan Lost the Great South Asian War’ quotes Ajit Doval as saying that there was a lot of public pressure on the NDA government to release the terrorists. Doval, who was an Intelligence Bureau Special Director (Special Operations) at that time, was sent to Kandahar along with MEA Joint Secretary Vivek Katju, CD Sahay (R&AW) and Anand Arni (R&AW) to negotiate with Taliban and the hijackers.

Interestingly, the UPA government, in a bid to “improve relations with Pakistan”, had released Shahid Latif in 2010. Latif, a senior leader of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, was the man responsible for providing logistical and other support to the four Pakistani terrorists to carry out the attack on Pathankot airbase in 2016.