PTI
 
New Delhi, Aug 27: In a stinging attack on Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani over the 1999 Kandahar hijack episode, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah has accused the then Prime Minister and Home Minister of compelling him to release Jaish-e-Mohammad founder Maulana Masood Azhar for which the ‘world will pay the price’.

Breaking his silence on the issue, the former ally of the ruling NDA said he had unsuccessfully desired to resign in view of the compelling directives of Vajpayee and Advani instead of being seen as "one responsible for promoting terrorism in this form".

He said the Central pressure on him to release terrorists in view of the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in December 1999 was similar to the one he underwent exactly 10 years back after the abduction of Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

"As far as Maulana Masood Azhar is concerned, the decision to release him and the two others [terrorists] was made by then Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee and by L K Advani," Abdullah said in an interview.

Insisting that he had ‘serious reservations’ to freeing Azhar, he said, "It is they who compelled me to release him for the passengers aboard IC-814 that had been hijacked to Kandahar.”

His comments rocked the Rajya Sabha on Friday after a member referred to the interview in the House. Vajpayee has since refuted Abdullah's charge.