Kapil Sibal on (JeM) chief Masood Azhar ban: Can PM say terror will end now?

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal wants Prime Minister Narendra Modi to state whether terrorism in India will end since Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar has been declared a global terrorist by the UN Security Council. “We want terrorism to end,” he said, demanding that Pakistan be declared as a “terrorist state” and wanting the Prime Minister to promise this to the country.

The former Union Minister questioned why Modi was “taking credit” for JeM chief’s listing as a global terrorist by the UNSC and said the Prime Minister should instead “apologise” to the country on behalf of his party as it was the previous BJP government which had set Azhar free and “delivered” him “to Pakistan” following the hijack of Indian Airlines plane IC-814 in 1999. Azhar was listed as a global terrorist by UNSC’s 1267 Sanctions Committee on May 1.

“How is it the success of Modi? It is the success of Indian diplomacy with the support of international community,” Sibal told. He said after 26/11, on December 11, 2008, Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed was declared a terrorist along with some other top Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT) commanders like Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi and Mohd Ashraf. “Did we take credit? Was it because of (the then Prime Minister) Dr Manmohan Singh? No. It’s the success of our international diplomacy,” said Sibal, who was a minister then. “And then, despite all this, terrorism continued, despite they (Saeed, Lakhvi and Ashraf) being declared terrorists,” he said. “We want terror to end and Modi cannot promise to people of the country as none other can,” he said.

Contending that Modi was “taking credit for everything that others do while he is an utter failure for what he does”, the Congress leader said: “Even after all this, can Modi tell us that terrorism will end after Masood Azhar has been declared a terrorist?” While targeting the Prime Minister and the BJP, he said: “Who delivered Masood Azhar to Pakistan? The previous BJP government, which took him on a special plane after IC-814 was hijacked to Afghanistan. And he (Modi) is taking credit for having declared him a terrorist? Then why did you release him if he was a terrorist?”

Azhar, the chief of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen then, was among three terrorists released from an Indian jail in exchange of 155 hostages on board the plane which was hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan during its flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi in December 1999. Soon thereafter, Azhar formed JeM in Pakistan. Modi “must apologise to the nation on behalf of his party that they released a terrorist who would never have set up Jaish-e-Mohammad,” Sibal said. Targeting the Prime Minister, he said: “The issue is not whether you are a terrorist or not under 1267 resolution (of the UNSC’s Sanction Committee). The issue is whether you can end terrorism. None of this is going to end terror. So what are you taking credit for?” He added: “We must have Pakistan declared as a terrorist state. Can Modi promise that to the country? He will promise but he will never deliver because all his promises have not been delivered.” (IANS)

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