New Delhi: BJP downplayed former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister's Farooq Abdullah's remarks on the release of jailed terrorists during the 1999 IA plane hijack, by calling it as his personal opinion on Friday.
Abdullah, whose son Omar Abdullah was a Union Minister in the NDA government, has told a newspaper in an interview that the decision to set free Maulana Masood Azhar in exchange for the release of the IA hostages was taken by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Home Minister L K Advani.
"This is his personal opinion which everybody is free to have," BJP Parliamentary Party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said.
He also recalled there was no opposition from within the Cabinet when it decided its course of action to secure the safe release of the hostages.
Defending his party from the attack over the IA hijack crisis, Malhotra mistakenly recalled the BJP-backed V P Singh government as a Congress-supported administration while referring to the Rubaiya Sayeed kidnapping case.
He, however, accused the Congress, whose members created an uproar in both the Houses over Abdullah's interview, of having sponsored protests for the release of the captive passengers in 1999.
Also, Malhotra pointed out that his party's demand for a discussion in Parliament on the Mitrokhin archives had remained unaddressed so far.
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