Pune: Breaking his silence six years after the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Afghanistan, the then Home Minister and senior BJP leader L K Advani indicated he had opposed the decision to release terrorists, including Maulana Mazhoor Azad.
"I don't want to comment on it now after so many years. But I had said within the Government what I wanted to say at that time itself," the Leader of Opposition told reporters here, adding the "then External Affairs Minister was only implementing the Government decision."
He, however, refused to elaborate what he had said within the Government.
The former deputy prime minister was responding to a question drawing parallels between the release of the three terrorists by the NDA Government and the recent unanimous Kerala Assembly resolution demanding release of the Coimbatore blast accused Madani from a Tamil Nadu jail.
It is perhaps for the first time that Advani had made public the differences that may have existed withing the Government on the issue.
The Indian Airlines flight IC 814 was hijacked from Kathmandu on Christmas eve in 1999 and all the passengers were released after Singh escorted the three terrorists, including Azhar, to Kandahar in Afghanistan.
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