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New Indian Express
11 minutes ago
- New Indian Express
Afghan kingpin behind fake Indian passport racket busted in Jabalpur, MP
BHOPAL: A major racket facilitating illegal Afghan nationals in acquiring Indian passports has been busted in Jabalpur district, Madhya Pradesh. The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested three individuals, including the alleged kingpin, an Afghan national identified as Sohbat Khan, who had been living illegally in Jabalpur for the past decade. Khan, who had married a local woman during his stay and managed to obtain an Indian passport in 2020 using forged documents, was reportedly helping other Afghan youths residing illegally in West Bengal and Chhattisgarh to obtain Indian passports using fake address proofs linked to Jabalpur. The two local aides arrested alongside Khan have been identified as Dinesh Garg (40), a resident of Jabalpur's Vijay Nagar area and a forest guard posted at the election cell in the Jabalpur district collector's office, and Mahendra Kumar Sukhdan (45).
Indian Express
11 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Malegaon blast case acquittals expose a deep-rooted bias in Congress
The recent verdict in the Malegaon blast case has not just acquitted individuals like Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya — it has exposed something far more sinister: The Congress party's consistent and deep-rooted prejudice against the Hindu community. As someone who believes in justice, constitutional morality, and the inclusive spirit of India, I find it essential to call out this ideological poison for what it is. The judgment in the 2008 Malegaon blast case is damning, not for the accused but for the political ecosystem that manipulated agencies, planted narratives, and criminalised identities. The court noted how the prosecution failed to provide evidence beyond reasonable doubt, how witnesses turned hostile, and how the fabric of the case was stitched together with political intent. As someone who has followed the case closely, including the detailed biography of Lt Col Purohit by journalist Smita Mishra, I was appalled. Here was a decorated Army officer who had been entrusted with infiltrating terror networks, but who ended up being framed as a terrorist himself. His nine years behind bars were not just a personal tragedy — they were the outcome of a Congress-led UPA regime that needed to invent 'Hindu terror' to balance Islamist terror in the public discourse. This perverse narrative was systematically constructed by three key Congress leaders. In August 2010, then-Union Home Minister P Chidambaram publicly warned of a new phenomenon of 'saffron terrorism', alleging that radical Hindu outfits were implicated in bomb blasts. His colleague Digvijay Singh then popularised the term within the Congress ranks, describing 'terrorism among Hindus' while paradoxically objecting to religious descriptors for terrorism. The campaign reached its peak when then-Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde defended 'saffron terror' at a party conclave in January 2013, claiming his ministry's confidential papers substantiated the allegations. Years later, Shinde would admit that coining the term was a mistake — but by then, irreparable damage had been done to innocent lives and India's social fabric. This perverse narrative found its way into diplomatic cables too. In the WikiLeaks cable from 2009, Rahul Gandhi reportedly told then-US Ambassador Timothy Roemer that Hindu radicalism was a bigger threat to India than Lashkar-e-Taiba. This was not a stray remark. It was a window into the Congress's ideological framework, where the Hindu is always the problem and the minority vote bank must always be coddled, even at the cost of truth. Go back to 1951. When the Somnath temple was reconstructed after centuries of devastation, India's first President Rajendra Prasad, agreed to attend the inauguration. But Jawaharlal Nehru disapproved, fearing it would look like 'Hindu revivalism'. Fast forward to 1985. The Supreme Court delivers a progressive judgment in favor of Shah Bano, a Muslim woman seeking alimony. But Rajiv Gandhi caved under pressure from conservative clerics and overturned the ruling through legislation. In 1988, the Congress government banned Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses — even before protests erupted in India. It wasn't about public order; it was about pre-emptively appeasing a vote bank. And perhaps the most shocking of all: In 2006, then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared, 'We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources.' I am a Dalit, and I cannot stay silent at the suggestion that national development should be filtered by religion. What about the poor Hindu, the Dalit student, the tribal child? Does their struggle not count? Today, when Rahul Gandhi speaks of 'social justice' and champions Dalit rights, one must ask: How does denying reservation to marginalised communities in prestigious institutions like AMU and Jamia serve social justice? This is the height of hypocrisy — using Dalit symbolism for votes while systematically undermining Dalit interests in policy. This isn't just about Congress. It's about the future of India's democracy. A nation cannot move forward if it continues to be shackled by ideological hatred and historical bias. Hindu identity is not extremist. It is civilisational. And those who equate it with terror not only insult India's history —they endanger its future. The Congress party owes an apology. To the falsely accused. To the institutions it compromised. And to the silent Hindu majority who have endured humiliation in the name of 'secularism'. The writer is national spokesperson of the BJP
NDTV
an hour ago
- NDTV
Witness Asked To Name Yogi Adityanath In Malegaon Blast Case, Court Told
A witness in the 2008 Malegaon blast case who turned hostile claimed he was illegally detained and forced to implicate Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, besides four others linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). In its over 1,000-page judgment, special judge A K Lakhoti of a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court mentioned Milind Joshi Rao's testification that he was pressured by the Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) officials to falsely name Mr Adityanath, RSS member Indresh Kumar, former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Hindu seer and former RSS member Swami Aseemanand, and Professor Deodhar in the case. Besides, Mr Rao also said the ATS illegally kept him in custody for a week and told him he would be freed only if he named the above five people. Six people were killed when a bomb planted in a motorcycle exploded in a busy market in Malegaon, around 300 km from Mumbai, on September 29, 2008. The blast was initially probed by the state ATS before the case was handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the country's top anti-terror body. All seven accused, including Ms Thakur, were acquitted by the court on Thursday on the grounds that there was "no reliable and cogent" evidence against them. On Friday, a former probe officer alleged that the ATS was ordered to arrest RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat during the course of investigation. Mehboob Mujawar, who was a part of the ATS team that investigated the blast, also claimed there was an attempt to take the probe in the "wrong direction" and that false cases were registered against him for objecting to the plan. "Mohan Bhagwat was going to be included in the case to make it appear like a saffron terror case," Mr Mujawar said. The BJP has in the past alleged that the investigation into the case was carried out with an intention to defame and frame right wing leaders and target the Hindu community. "There was an attempt to conduct a fake probe into the Malegaon bomb blast but I was not ready for it. False cases were registered against me in this case but my name was cleared later," he said. The NIA court, however, dismissed the claims. The blast in Malegaon took place during the holy month of Ramzan, just before the Navratri festival, the NIA pointed out, claiming the intention of the accused was to strike terror in a section of the Muslim community. The trial, which started in 2018, got over on April 19 this year. The prosecution presented 323 witnesses, of whom 37 turned hostile. The special court, on Thursday, observed that while the prosecution had proven a bomb blast did occur, it failed to establish that the explosive was planted on the motorbike.
