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Congress for screening panel to decide release of militants

The Congress party on Thursday said it favoured a screening committee to decide on release of militants in future, but insisted the exercise was not necessary for freeing political leaders.

State Congress president Ghulam Nabi Azad said such a committee would not give the BJP the chance to level allegations.

On the issue of freeing political prisoners, Azad said, "After all, one has to deal with political leaders for seeking a solution to the problem and it cannot be done in jail."

Defending the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed-led government, he said it had taken clearance from top officials of the intelligence agencies before releasing the separatists.

Attacking the BJP for making the release of the separatists an issue, he said the party is adopting "double standards".

It is creating a hue and cry over release of six separatists, despite the fact that thousands of militants were released in the state during the rule of the National Conference, an alliance partner of the National Democratic Alliance, he said.

"The Vajpayee government has been responsible for many wrongdoings with respect to terrorism but we remained silent keeping the national interest in view."

"When thousands of militants were released since 1998, the Congress did not make an issue out of it as we believed that whatever was being done was in national interest," he said.

Accusing the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre of behaving "irresponsibly" with regard to its approach towards the PDP-led government in Jammu and Kashmir, Azad said, "It [central government] started playing politics and messing up things from day one."

"This is unfair for the people and the government of the state," he said.

He said the formation of a "heterogeneous" coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir, with widest representation from all the three regions and all shades of thinking of the state for the first time, had provided a "great opportunity" and the central government should have "acted wisely".

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