Who released Masood Azhar from jail, Rahul asks Modi

New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over Pulwama terror attack and said it was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that freed Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar. "A few days back CRPF personnel were killed in Pulwama. I want to ask the Prime Minister that who killed them? 

What is the name of chief of JeM? Wasn't it a BJP government that freed Masood Azhar from an Indian jail," Rahul Gandhi said as he addressed a rally in Haveri, Karnataka. Gandhi said the Congress was, however, not the same. "We don't bend before terrorism," Rahul said at Haveri. JeM chief Azhar and two other militants Mushtaq Ahmed and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh were freed in exchange for hijacked Indian Airlines passengers by then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh in 1999. 

After some restraint post a suicide bomber attacked a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama, the Congress sharpened its attack on the Modi government over the incident. Alleging failure on part of the government, the Congress questioned the Centre how such an attack was not stopped. The Congress has also accused the BJP, its ministers and Narendra Modi of politicising the Pulwama attack.