Pakistan must prove innocence by handing hijackers over, says BJP

Pakistan must prove innocence by handing hijackers over, says BJP
ENS & AGENCIES

CHENNAI, JAN 2: Pakistan must hand over the hijackers of the Indian Airlines aircraft to India if it was not involved in the incident as it claimed, BJP general secretary Venkiah Naidu said here on Sunday.

He told mediapersons that Pakistan had not refuted that the hijackers were Pakistanis. Morever, the hijackers were in Pakistan at the moment, Naidu claimed.

The only reason why Pakistan refused permission to the hijacked plane to land in Lahore was that it did not want to appear a terrorist state in front of the world, Naidu explained.

The hijacking episode, he said, underscored the need for ``a more attentive, assertive and aggressive public opinion'' against such heinous crimes. ``This should be an eye-opener to all of us. We should resolve to act tough against terrorism. There is a need for a joint effort by the international community to deal with such crimes.''

Naidu said political parties should now debate on bringing in stringent laws to combat terrorism. ``There is need for a more stringentlaw than TADA, and all state governments should come forward for a consensus on this.'

Rejecting the opposition criticism over the handling of the issue as merely `political', he said the government had tackled it in an appropriate manner and it had no other option but to act in the way it did. Only after the Government was convinced that releasing the three terrorists was the only solution to the imbroglio, did it release them, he added.

This was not an isolated case, Naidu said and pointed out that the release of Rubaiya, daughter of the then Union Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and official Duraisamy had been secured in a similar manner. The present case was confounded by the fact that the hijack occurred not on Indian soil but Nepal. ``Terrorism is a legacy which we have inherited from the previous regime,'' Naidu said.

Dismissing as `immature' the Opposition's reaction to the government's handling of the episode, he said: ``hard realities are not black or white and always have a shade of grey.Nobody is happy that terrorists were released, but there was no other way.'

On the charge that the government had not revealed all details, he said it would be unwise to reveal strategies on such sensitive issues. ``Strategies are never revealed.''

Describing the hijacking incident as the `biggest challenge to democracy and civilisation', Naidu called for a debate by the government and the political parties to evolve a more stringent law to deal with terrorism and militancy.``It is high time that the Indian government took up this issue at various international fora to expose Pakistan''.