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enior leader of the BJP and former deputy prime minister L K Advani finds himself in the midst of a big controversy over the IC-814 hijacking. Brajesh Mishra who was the National Security Advisor (NSA) and a vital player in the confabulations has also taken on Advani on his versions.
Brajesh Mishra has told TIMES NOW that L K Advani was in the loop on IC 814. Mishra said a decision to send a plane to Kandahar with Jaswant Singh was unanimous decision among the cabinet committee members.
Mishra said all members including L K Advani were present in the meeting and that Advani had agreed to send the plane IC 814 to Kandahar.
George Fernandes had said in the past that Advani might have forgotten about the incident during the meeting.
Mishra further said that there was no dissent about sending the plane to Kandahar.
Terming the incident as a difficult phase in the process of decision making, Mishra said, "Jaswant Singh had to go in the same plane as the militants who were exchanged with 160 people because Pakistan refused to allow the two planes to cross over."
He further said that there was an initial demand of 200 million dollars and 39 terrorists during the negotiations, but that it was brought down to 3 terrorists.
Advani in his book “My Country, My Life” explaining the episode of hijack of the aircraft wrote, “I spent the entire night at the CMGs office at Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan, where Brajesh Mishra, the National Security Advisor, and other officials were also present, closely monitoring the developments and revising the strategy to secure the release of the hostages in the fast-changing scenario. We soon learnt that the hijackers had been demanding the release of thirty-six terrorists from Indian jails, besides a ransom of US $200 million. But their main demand was for the release of Mohammad Masood Azhar, leader of one of the most dreaded terrorist organisations in Jammu & Kashmir, who had been arrested in 1994. I was initially not in favour of exchanging the terrorists with the hostages. However, the situation that our government was faced with was truly extraordinary. The fact that the hijackers had taken the plane to Kandahar had rendered the situation much more complex and difficult..Throughout the hijack episode, my colleague Jaswant Singh, and his colleagues in the MEA, worked tirelessly to bring the crisis to a satisfactory end.”
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