New Delhi: The Congress Tuesday cited a 2010 interview of National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to claim that he blamed the BJP-led government for the release of JeM chief Masood Azhar in the Kandahar hijacking episode and gave a "clean chit" to the terrorist.
The scathing attack by the Congress comes a day after the BJP latched on to Rahul Gandhi's reference to the Jaish-e-Mohammad's chief as "Masood Azhar ji".
The opposition party had hit back, accusing its rival of deliberately twisting Gandhi's comments made sarcastically.
"Modi government's NSA, Ajit Doval, 'spills the beans' and indicts BJP government in release of terrorist, Masood Azhar. Doval said (in the interview), 'Releasing Masood Azhar was a political decision'," Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted.
"Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad admit to the anti-national act now," he said in a series of tweets using the hashtag 'BJP Loves Terrorists'.
Surjewala also attached a link of Doval's 2010 interview with the tweets.
"Modi government's NSA, Ajit Doval's 'clean chit certificate' to terrorist, Masood Azhar revealed," he said.
"1. Masood doesn't know how to fabricate an IED.
2. Masood is not a marksman.
3. After releasing Masood, tourism in J&K has gone up by 200%," Surjewala quoted Doval as saying in the interview.
Doval saluted the real "nationalistic policy of Congress-UPA to tacke terror, the Congress spokesperson claimed.
"UPA-Cong came with a categorical policy on hijacking. No concession, no talks," he quoted Doval as saying. Why did the BJP government not show the same guts, Surjewala said.
Addressing a meeting of Congress workers here, Gandhi had attacked the BJP, saying, "These people with 56 inch chest, you would recall, in their previous government, the current National Security Advisor Ajit Doval went in an aircraft with Masood Azhar ji and handed over Masood Azhar there in Kandahar."
He asserted that it was Azhar who was responsible for the killing of 40 CRPF soldiers in Pulwama in Kashmir on February 14.
Azhar and two other terrorists, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, were released from Indian prison in 1999 by the then BJP-led government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in exchange for the passengers held hostage on board IC-814 flight hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan.
Azhar formed the Pakistan-based terror group JeM after his release from jail. Since then, the group has been involved in terrorist attacks in India.
The group was responsible for the attack on Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001 in which nine security personnel and officials were killed.
On January 2, 2016, a heavily armed group of JeM attacked the Pathankot air base in which seven security personnel were killed.
JeM also carried out the attack on Uri brigade headquarters on September 18, 2016, killing 17 soldiers and injuring 30 others. And the latest is the Pulwama attack.
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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).