Purulia arms drop plane had stopped at Karachi: Cong

New Delhi, Feb 11 (UNI) The Congress today posed ten questions to Mr L K Advani, BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate, maintaining that the saffron party had a deplorable record in checking terrorism and had no right to lecture anybody.

Raising the questions in a three-page statement, AICC spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said the plane carrying arms that were dropped in Purulia had stopped at Karachi.

The NDA government had also released British national Peter Bleach, convicted in the Purulia case for waging a war against the nation, despite the fact that his clemency petition had been rejected by two Presidents, K R Narayanan and A P J Abdul Kalam, he said.

Among the other questions are: * Why was it necessary for Mr Jaswant Singh, the then Foreign Minister, to escort Mohammed Afzal and other terrorists involved in the hijack of an Indian Airlines flight to Kandhahar? * Did the NDA government and Mr Advani raise at the Agra summit with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf the Kargil intrusion and terror attack on the Red Fort? * How did Kargil intruders occupy 130 posts in 1999 and how was Pakistan sufficiently emboldened to commit Kargil when it had not dared to attack India directly or indirectly for 28 years from 1971 to 1999? ''The person who wants to be the next Indian Prime Minister should answer to the nation as to each of these questions and issues...He is lecturing us now after saluting (Mohammed Ali) Jinnah, the man responsible for partitioning India, as a secular leader,'' Mr Singhvi said.

However, he parried a question on whether the Congress would advise the UPA government to come out with a white paper on these issues.

UNI SN VD KN1819