"Second Time My Father Was Forced To...": Omar Abdullah On IC 814 Hijack

Omar Abdullah, former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, shed light on the difficult decisions faced by his father, Farooq Abdullah, during the 1999 IC814 hijacking incident. He highlighted the tough decisions faced by his father, Farooq Abdullah, during that time.

In an interview with ANI, Omar Abdullah revealed that the IC814 hijack was not the first instance where his father was compelled to release prisoners.

He cited a previous case involving Rubaiya Syed, the daughter of former Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who was kidnapped by Kashmiri separatists in 1989. The Central Government, led by VP Singh, had released five jailed terrorists of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in exchange for Rubaiya's safe release.

"This is the second time my father was forced to release people. With Rubaiya Syed and families of the hijacked victims, they used the Rubaiya Syed incident as the benchmark. They said when you could release terrorists for a home minister's daughter, is our family not precious? Why is it only she is precious to the country? Then if she is precious to you, then our family is precious to us. So we set a benchmark that had to be followed," Omar Abdullah said.

Notably, the IC814 hijack has become a hot topic of conversation and is spanned with controversy and concerns about the names of terrorists being used in the Anubhav Sinha directed series on Netflix, "IC814: The Kandahar Hijack."

Omar Abdullah emphasised that the precedent set during the Rubaiya Syed incident became a benchmark for the families of the hijacked individuals, who demanded equal consideration and safety during the IC814 hijack in 1999.

"I think Government of India had an option. I think Government of India at the Rubaiya Syed kidnapping time had the option of not negotiating with terrorists. They chose to negotiate. After that, once you've done it once, then you have to do it again," Omar Abdullah said.

Regarding the execution of Afzal Guru, Omar Abdullah clarified that the Jammu and Kashmir government had no involvement in the process. He stated that if state approval had been required, it would not have been granted.

"The unfortunate thing was that the J-K government had nothing to do with Afzal Guru's execution. Otherwise, you would have had to do it with the permission of the state government, which I can tell you in no uncertain terms would not have been forthcoming. We wouldn't have done it. I don't believe that any purpose was served by executing him," Omar Abdullah said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)