“Exposing A Terror Plot”, Open the magzine, January 31, 2026
“Among the Padma awardees this year is former home ministry official RVS Mani and his story reveals the truth about who actually ‘politicised’ terrorism investigations—the Modi government as alleged by the I.N.D.I.A. bloc or the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) when it was in office. Congress, along with other ‘secular’ parties, has accused the BJP governments of misusing anti-terror laws and had opposed the Vajpayee government’s enactment of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) on grounds that the law would be used to target minorities. When UPA replaced BJP at the Centre, it repealed POTA. But the problem of terrorism did not go away and Central intelligence agencies shared inputs about a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) plot to assassinate political figures leading to the encounter deaths of the LeT module that included Mumbra teen Ishrat Jahan. Here the plot gets interesting.
The home ministry did a complete U-turn on its August 2009 affidavit that had established the terrorist connections of the module in a second submission the very next month. The idea of Congress political managers was simple—to turn the encounter into a case of “extra-judicial” killing of “innocents”. Mani blew the whistle despite being allegedly physically intimidated by an SIT set up to investigate the incident. To the bad luck of those looking to enmesh the Gujarat government then led by Narendra Modi, 26/11 key conspirator David Headley told his interrogators Ishrat Jahan was a Lashkar member, and he repeated the same in a video testimony to an Indian court in 2016. Attempts to implicate the Gujarat government in either the Ishrat Jahan case or the death of criminal Sohrabuddin ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls failed and India’s political map changed after Modi and BJP won a majority.
Standing Room Only
As it turned out, the Republic Day was blessed with clear skies and bright sunshine while the next day was cold and wet. The spectacle on Kartavya Path was witnessed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and guests of honour, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa. Modi and visiting dignitaries stood most of the time rather than using the chairs set out for them. The prime minister had a guide to the events in hand to help explain the displays and the cultural presentations. It was an unusual sight with the two EU leaders standing on either side of Modi and observing the parade with apparent interest. The clear day also meant the air power display culminating with a Rafale Vertical Charlie took place without a hitch……”
Read full article at openthemagazine.com
