Srinagar, Mar 28: National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Monday thanked Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan for confirming that the then J-K chief minister Farooq Abdullah had opposed the release of militants in exchange of Rubaiya Sayeed in 1989.
Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of the then Union home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, was kidnapped by JKLF militants on December 8, 1989.
Omar Abdullah, a former chief minister of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state and Union minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government, tweeted a clip of a recent television interview of Khan, saying, “Kudos to the governor of Kerala.” “Arif Mohd Khan Sb sets the record straight about what happened in December 1989 during the BJP supported VP Singh government. Facts are facts even when they don’t support the narrative sought to be created by the BJP and its ecosystem,” he said in the tweet.
In the TV interview clip, Khan narrated the incidents of the day when he, along with former prime minister I K Gujral, who was the external affairs minister in the VP Singh government, had visited Abdullah’s Gupkar Road residence.
“…to be fair to him (Farooq Abdullah), he was against the demand of the militants to release some militants who were in jail. I immediately told Mr Farooq Abdullah….I told him, ‘Farooq Saheb, I stand by you and I will go to any extent to support you’,” Khan said in the interview.
He added that he was sidelined thereafter as the message from Delhi was to exert pressure to release the militants so that Rubaiya Sayeed’s release could be secured.
Rubaiya Sayeed was released five days after being abducted with the government releasing five militants – Sheikh Abdul Hameed, Ghulam Nabi Butt, Noor Mohammed Kalwal, Mohammed Altaf and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar.–(PTI)
