In his deposition before a designated court in Mumbai, David Coleman Headley alias Daood Sayed Gilani reiterated that Ishrat Jahan was a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative. Contrary to popular expectation that Pakistan would be at receiving end on the ‘counter-terrorism’ front, Headley’s previous and present depositions open a Pandora’s box for the ‘seculars’ in general and Congress in particular. What was told about the forged war waged by Pakistan on Bharat is an open fact which unintentionally pushed the ‘secular’ brigade led by Congress into huddle to defend the canonisation of Israt Jahan. An attempt to fabricate political plots with deadly mixture of hard power, misuse of investigation agencies and systematic misinformation campaign is set to expose with these reiterations.
Headley’s claim of Ishrat Jahan being the LeT operative and was involved in a failed plot of executing the assassination of the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, has put the Congress party in dock on many counts. First of all, whether the encounter was genuine or fake can be established only in the court of law, how does that change the fact that Ishrat and her friends were Lashkar terrorists, which was initially accepted even by the Congress led UPA government in a statement submitted to the court in 2009? Why and under whose direction this stand was changed within a month in a fresh statement? The NIA had received access to Headley in the US prison and then only he had named a woman handler who got killed in the State of Gujarat, who was no other than Ishrat who was called as Bihar ki beti by the Chief Minister of Bihar to boost his ‘secular’ image. Why this revelation was not disclosed in the court of law? Instead, why a controversy about conflict between CBI and Intelligence Bureau was played up? Who was serving whose interests and misusing the investigation agencies and for which political objective are the larger questions Congress must answer to the nation.
Another important factor hitherto neglected by media and legal luminaries, that this deposition of Headley can open another Pandora’s box of the Samjhauta Express blasts. On July 1, 2009, the United States Treasury Department said in its press release: “Arif Qasmani has worked with the LeT to facilitate terrorist attacks, including…Samjhauta Express bombing.” It can be cross-verified in an independent investigation by a journalist who claimed that Faiza Outalha, the third wife of David Coleman Headley and a co-conspirator had confessed that Headley was involved in the Samjhauta blast. The UN resolution [No 1267] of the Committee on Sanctions of the United Nations Security Council [UNSC] dated June 29, 2009 and the then Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Mallik’s admission that Pakistani terrorists were involved in the Samjhauta blast, corroborate the LeT involvement. What were the reasons then that the story of ‘Hindu Terror’ was cooked up? A prominent name that came in the US investigation on the train blast was Arif Qasmani from Karachi? Why this name is completely missing in the investigation in Bharat? Why one should not suspect that the facts were hidden in the Samjhauta Blast case and in the Ishrat Jahan case? These are the obvious corollaries that will come up through Headley’s testimony.
Congress has a long history of hiding historical facts and falsely framing the nationalists. ‘Secular’ intellectuals and a section of media cleverly provide cover to those misdeeds in the name of ‘secularism’, ‘human rights’, democratic values, freedom etc. We have seen the similar ploy in the campus of JNU, where the Left version of seculars who are more shameless in depicting their anti-national credentials dared to celebrate death of terrorists like Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front co-founder Maqbool Bhat as martyrdom. The same people may stand by Headley and Kasmani in the future to frame somebody else. With vibrant social media and vigilant public opinion it is difficult to get into framing and cover up acts as blatantly as they use to do. It is better they reckon with the changing socio-political reality of Bharat, otherwise documents and depositions will keep raising questions on the intent of handlers and executers of the ‘secular’ brigade.
