Srinagar: Former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee wanted to make former chief minister of J&K, Farooq Abdullah Vice President of India but reneged on the promise, according to former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief, A. S. Dulat.

In an interview to Karan Thapar on his ‘India Today’ TV programme ‘To The Point’, Dulat said the offer to make Farooq Vice President happened at his (Dulat’s) Delhi residence at a private dinner and was made on Vajpayee’s behalf by Brajesh Mishra.

Later Farooq told Dulat both L. K. Advani and Vajpayee had reconfirmed the offer. “However, Farooq always had doubts whether Vajpayee would fulfil this promise. He told me I don’t trust them. I don’t trust Delhi.”

“Ultimately, Vajpayee reneged on the promise,” Dulat said, “because people in Delhi felt Farooq was unreliable. They even suggested he would not spend time in the Rajya Sabha.”

“The other problem was that Farooq becoming Vice President was part of an arrangement whereby Krishan Kant would become President. When the latter didn’t happen the promise to Farooq fell by the wayside.”

According to Dulat, Farooq felt bitter. “He felt let down.”

“When I conveyed this to Brajesh Mishra and Vajpayee they brushed aside Farooq’s bitterness and said he would be made a Cabinet Minister instead. When I conveyed this to Farooq he said he didn’t believe it. And again this second promise was also not fulfilled.”

In the interview, Dulat also claimed that Hizbul Mujahideen and United Jihad Council chief, Syed Salahuddin once contacted the head of IB in Srinagar (K. M. Singh) to ask for a place in a medical college for his son which Farooq, then Chief Minister, arranged.

According to Dulat, there are frequent instances of IB and R & AW doing such “favours” for militants, including those in Pakistan. “In this instance it was part of what could have been an attempt to lure Salauddin back which didn’t succeed.”

Dulat reveals how in 2002 Atal Bihari Vajpayee, then Prime Minister, advised Sonia Gandhi against making Mufti Sayeed chief minister.

“This is because Delhi at that time had grave doubts about Mehbooba Mufti. They believed she had links with the Hizbul Mujahideen and Jamaat. As a result during a visit to Srinagar in April 2003 Mr. Vajpayee insisted that Mehbooba should not be on the stage with him and Mufti Sayeed.”

In the interview, Dulat said that Brajesh Mishra as Principal Secretary to the PM and NSA “virtually ran the government”. He said Brajesh Mishra was more powerful than Home Minister L. K. Advani. He said Vajpayee readily acquiesced to this power arrangement.

This interview was broadcast on India Today Television at 8.00 p.m Thursday.
Speaking about the Agra summit, Dulat said a meeting L. K. Advani had with Gen. Musharraf the night before soured the atmosphere. “This is when L. K. Advani surprised Musharraf by asking for Dawood Ibrahim. This took Musharraf back and a shadow was cast thereafter on the Agra summit.”

However, at Agra, Dulat said he was told by Brajesh Mishra that they were very close to agreement. “As Mr. Mishra put it: “Yaar, hote-hote reh gaya … Ho gaya tha, who toh”.

He said Vajpayee and Brajesh were palpably disappointed.

Dulat said that Ashraf Qazi, then Pakistani High Commissioner, told him that on three occasions Jaswant Singh had rung the Pakistanis to say a deal was done. But it never happened.

Dulat said Vajpayee in 2004, after losing the elections, told him that the Gujarat killings of 2002 were “a mistake”. “Mr Vajpayee’s exact words were: “Woh hamare se galti hui”.

Dulat said the pain and grief on Vajpayee’s face was clearly visible.

The former RAW chief recalled how Farooq shouted at him for “hours together” during their meeting after a decision was taken to release three hardcore militants in exchange for the freedom of the passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999.

“Farooq felt the decision by the Union Government was a mistake and he stormed off our meeting to call on Governor Girish Chander Saxena with an intention to resign.”

When the hijacking took place on December 24, the Crisis Management Group (CMG) “goofed up” the entire case by not immobilising the plane when it had landed in Amritsar, “No one was willing to take a decision and in that confusion no instructions were passed on to Punjab Police which had moved in its personnel. They carried on debating and the plane flew off,” Dulat told Karan Thapar.

Dulat said as the CMG agreed to release the three militants in exchange for the lives of the 155 passengers and the crew members members to end the 8-day-old hijack crisis, he was deputed to talk to Farooq in Jammu as two of them — Mushtaq Latram and Malulana Masood Azhar — were lodged in J and K.

Recounting his meeting with Farooq, Dulat said “he shouted at me for hours together saying this was a mistake being committed by the Centre. “After he ventilated his anger, he stormed off to meet Governor Girish Chander Saxena with an intention to resign. However, the Governor calmed him down and Farooq eventually accepted the situation and agreed to the release of terrorists,” he said.

During the interview, he briefly mentioned about his last meeting with the former Prime Minister Vajpayee in which the BJP stalwart had said “woh humare se galti hui hai(it was our mistake)” about the 2002 Gujarat riots. Dulat, who headed the external spy agency till 2000, before he was appointed as Special Advisor in Vajpayee’s PMO on Kashmir issue, says Vajpayee always believed that 2002 riots was a mistake and the grief was “clearly visible” on his face.

Speaking about various issues related to Kashmir, Dulat said Rubayya Sayeed, daughter of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, was never the target of militants in 1989. “It was Saffia, Farooq’s daughter whom they wanted to kidnap. But, as Mufti become the Home Minister in the V P Singh government, they (militants) decided to take her hostage,” he said, adding this was told to him by the militant who had planned the kidnapping.

Recalling his days as Advisor in the PMO, Dulat, an IPS officer of 1965 batch of Rajasthan cadre, also said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was one such leader who could be roped into the mainstream. “But he is a scared person and fears for his life,” he said. (Courtesy: http://risingkashmir.in/)