New Delhi: The Kandahar controversy has come back to haunt the Bharatiya Janata Party after a gap of nearly seven years.
In December 1999, Indian Airlines flight IC-814 from Kathmandu to New Delhi was hijacked as soon as it entered the Indian airspace and taken to the south Afghan city of Kandahar.
The hijackers demanded the release of Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar and Ahmed Umar Syed Sheikh -- three hardcore terrorists who had been lodged in a J&K jail at that point of time.
After the hijackers issued an ultimatum on December 27 that they would start killing the hostages if their demand was not met, the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Cabinet bowed to the mounting pressure and ordered the release of the three terrorists.
Earlier on December 25, the hijacker had killed 25-year-old Rupin Katiyal, who was returning from his honeymoon in Kathmandu.
Three other men were injured - one of them seriously - and offloaded in Dubai. A total of 26 men, women and children were allowed to leave at Dubai.
Jaswant Singh, then the external affairs minister, accompanied the three terrorists to Kandahar and exchanged them in return for the safe release of the hostages. He became perhaps the only minister to accompany terrorists along with him.
On December 31, 1999, a day that will forever be remembered as the most shameful day for India, Vajpayee government brought the hostages home after succumbing to the demands of the hijackers.
Now after a gap of about seven years, Singh has written a book -- 'Call to Honour' -- in which he talks about this shameful episode in modern India's history. Singh has reportedly mentioned in his that along with the three terrorists, the hijackers also demanded $200 million and some arms and explosives as ransom.
A Hindi news channel, claiming access to the yet-to-be-released book, has even aired some excerpts from the book and interpreted the 'silence' on his part with regard to the ransom demand as an 'admission of payment'.
At a hurriedly convened press conference, Singh on Monday denied having made any 'revelations' and the allegations that he paid ransom to the hijackers. He also denied having carried any explosives to Kandahar.
He said the Union Cabinet's decision to reject the kidnappers' demands was 'unanimous'. He said the Cabinet had 'rejected' hijackers' demands for the release of 36 terrorists and for a $200-million ransom in exchange for the hostages.
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The issue, which has the potential to snowball into a major controversy, now has the ruling Congress up in arms. On Tuesday, the Congress demanded the expulsion of Singh from the BJP. On his part, Singh promptly dismissed the allegations that he had carried explosives and paid ransom to the hijackers of the Indian Airlines flight.
Reacting to media reports over the 'alleged revelations' in Singh's book, Congress spokesman Satyavrat Chaturvedi said if the 'revelations' in the BJP leader's memoirs were true, he should be expelled from the party.
"If they are correct, there is a need to look into these facts and take appropriate legal action against all concerned," he said, adding, "the revelations have exposed the true colours of the saffron party."
"We demand that the government must formally investigate into this matter and appropriate action should be taken against those responsible for such acts," Chaturvedi said.
In his comments, Jaswant Singh recalled that he had asked the government to order any kind of inquiry after an MP levelled the same allegations against him in 2004. When asked as to what led to the decision to set free the three terrorists, the BJP leader said his book carries all 'facts' related to the move.
"Let the book arrive. I have a commitment with the publishers not to speak about its contents until it is released," Singh said. He recalled that the Cabinet also rejected a hijackers' demand for the buried remains of a slain terrorist.
Singh said Congress MP RK Anand had been forced to tender 'an unconditional apology' to him after levelling these allegations against him in the Rajya Sabha.
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