Bhopal: Congress leader Raj Babbar has alleged that releasing Jaish- e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar in 1999 was a "sin" committed by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Babbar went on to say that it is this "sin" that led to the terror attacks in the Parliament as well as in Pulwama.
Referring to the 1999 Kandahar plane hijack incident, the Congress leader, addressing a rally on Friday, said, "You, the then BJP government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had released Masood Azhar and taken him to Kandahar."
"You, Modi, arrogant ruler, the monarch, what kind of a reward did you get which has disturbed the Congress? It is your sin that you had released him (Masood Azhar). The attacks in Pulwama and Parliament were results of your sin," he claimed.
Babbar further said that credit for Masood Azhar being designated as a "global terrorist" by the United Nations belongs to the previous UPA government because it is the result of a process initiated by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2008-09.
He also said that Azhar's listing was a result of JeM's activities in Afghanistan not as a retaliation to the Pulwama and Pathankot terror attacks.
"The credit for getting Masood Azhar designated as a global terrorist should go to our foreign policy which Manmohan Singh and our other senior leaders executed. "They, the current NDA government, are trying to take credit for the process started by the UPA government," Babbar said.
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