Indian former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had expressed his discontent over the 2002 Gujarat riots and called it "our mistake", according to former RAW Chief AS Dulat. Dulat said this while recalling a meeting with Vajpayee. Dulat briefly mentioned about his last meeting with the former Prime Minister during which the BJP stalwart reflected about the 2002 Gujarat riots and said, "woh humare se galti hui hai(it was our mistake)." Dulat, who headed the external spy agency Research and Analysis Wing till 2000 before he was appointed as Special Advisor in Vajpayee's PMO on Kashmir issue, said Vajpayee always believed that the post-Godhra riots in 2002 was a "mistake" and the grief was "clearly visible" on his face. The handling of the Gujarat riots when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister has been at the centre of a controversy.
Recalling the 1999 Kandahar hijack, Dulat also said that the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah shouted at the then RAW chief Dulat for "hours together" during their meeting after a decision was taken to release three hardcore terrorists in exchange for the freedom of the passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999. Dulat, the former head of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), also said that Farooq felt the decision by the Union Government was a "mistake" and he had stormed off their meeting to call on Governor Girish Chander Saxena with an intention to resign.
