George rebuts: Advani knew of decision to send Jaswant to Kandahar

In an interview with The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24X7’s Walk the Talk, Advani had claimed that he did not know till the last moment that Singh was on the plane carrying terrorists to Kandahar for the hostage swap.

Singh has not yet responded to Advani. His narrative of the sequence of events during the last week of 1999, in his book, A Call to Honour: In Service of Emergent India, released in 2006 is silent about who took the decision. In fact, he does not even mention Advani or then prime minister A B Vajpayee. Singh records in his book that the decision for him to go was “natural”, and the officials handling the crisis wanted some political authority to be present at the spot.

In his interview, Fernandes recounted in detail the decision taken by senior ministers of the Vajpayee Government in December 1999 to send Singh along with three terrorists. According to a release issued by the news channel, he stated that this decision was taken after a discussion among senior ministers. The terrorists were flown to Kandahar for their eventual release in exchange for the passengers of an Indian Airlines plane, which had been hijacked by members of their group. Fernandes maintained that the decision was not taken unilaterally by Singh, but was supported by the ministers at the meeting.

When asked if Advani, as home minister, would have been present, Fernandes replied: “Yes, all were present.” On being told that this meant Advani’s recollection was faulty, Fernandes first tried to alter his earlier answer and suggested that Advani might not have been present “at that point”. But on being pressed further, he said in that case Advani was mistaken and his memory was wrong.

In his book, Singh does not specify what led to the decision. He writes: “It was not easy to decide to go to Kandahar, but somebody had to go. Vivek Katju (joint secretary in the MEA leading the talks with the hijackers), Ajit Duval (IB) and C D Sahay (RAW) were not unanimous in saying, ‘Sir, please depute somebody to come to Kandahar for even though we have agreed to release three when 36 had been wanted, there is no knowing what obstacles, problems may arise at the last minute. We want somebody to be able to then take decisions, on the spot. There will not be time to keep referring matters to Delhi’.”

Singh talks of his “torment” throughout the hijacking in his diary notes of the period published in the book, and his dilemma: “What is the right answer, where does it lie, how to reach it… That is how these terrorists became passengers on the aeroplane… For three terrorists, 161 men, women and children. Is it right? Wrong? A compromise? What? Between two moral rights: saving the lives of the innocents, and a fight against terrorism falls this hollow, unfilled space of the undetermined.”

Singh writes that at first he stood against any compromise, “then, slowly, as the days passed I began to change. Thus this flight. I go to ‘conclude’, rather to have the hijacking terminated and take back the passengers safely…”