Opinion | Disha Ravi, Nikita Jacob were pawns in an international conspiracy to tarnish Modi
The arrest of 22-year-old student activist Disha Ravi from Bengaluru by Delhi Police has raised eyebrows in certain circles, even as police teams are hunting for Bombay High Court lawyer Nikita Jacob and an engineer Shantanu Muluk in Maharashtra, who have gone underground, seeking legal protection from arrest. The larger picture that emerges is that these three were pawns in an international conspiracy to defame India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
I was surprised initially when Delhi Police arrested the college student Disha Ravi and brought her to the capital. My initial reaction was, how could a college girl indulge in an act of sedition? But as more evidences emerged, it now appears there was a big conspiracy planned by people sitting in different countries to create mayhem on India’s Republic Day this year.
The idea of hatching this conspiracy was floated in November last year, and the plan was set in motion by creating a WhatsApp group comprising of people based in Canada, Pakistan, UK, USA, and India on December 6. There was a Zoom meeting on January 11 to finalize the plan of action for January 26. Delhi Police is trying to find out who attended this crucial Zoom meeting. Investigators believe both Khalistanis and Pakistanis were involved in this conspiracy. At the Jan 11 meeting, plans were finalized how to create a Twitter storm, which groups to activate on social media, what messages to circulate in order to incite farmers for the tractor rally, and last, but not least, how to denigrate India’s image at the historic Red Fort on Republic Day.
Delhi Police is now focussing on known Khalistani supporters Mo Dhaliwal and Peter Frederick. The latter was on the radar of Indian security agencies since 2005-06 and had been in touch with Pakistani intelligence agency ISI for the last 10 to 15 years. Peter Frederick’s name figures as a resource person in the tool kit that was circulated. A known Modi-hater and Khalistan supporter, Peter Frederick had organized a meeting in Houston, Texas in 2019 to discourage NRIs from attending the Howdy Modi event that was addressed by the Prime Minister.
Disha Ravi, who runs Fridays for Future India, was in direct touch with Khalistani activist Mo Dhariwal, founder of Poetic Justice Foundation, sitting in Canada, through virtual meetings. The damaging ‘toolkit’ outlining the plans for Global Action Day on Jan 26, that was posted and later deleted by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg was sent to her by Disha Ravi via Telegram.
Disha panicked when Greta posted the toolkit on Twitter. By then, the cat was out of the bag and the whole world knew about the conspiracy that had been planned. In a WhatsApp chat with Greta, Disha told her their “names were on it (FIR)…Can we just not say anything at all for a while? I am gonna talk to lawyers. I am sorry but our names are on it. We can literally get UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) against us.”
Delhi Police says, Disha Ravi edited several lines of the toolkit Google doc and was “a key conspirator” in the formulation and dissemination of the toolkit. When Greta Thunberg inadvertently shared the toolkit on Twitter, Disha panicked and she knew police would soon catch up with her, because the Google doc was traced to her IP address.
Normally, for a young girl aged 21 years, I could have condoned her act on the ground that normally teenagers commit such mistakes, but when the entire mystery was unravelled, it became clear that Disha knew what she was up to. It was an act of sedition against her own country India. That is why Disha, in a hurry, deleted all traces of her involvement from her computer. Disha knew she was doing an anti-national act.
The question now arises: why would a 21-year-old girl do such a thing? Though a climate activist, she had Left leanings and was blindly anti-Modi. I have got a video in which Disha was saying that Modi was against Muslims, and he suppresses dissent. She also says she disagrees with her parents who support Modi. The result: it was easy for the main conspirators to use Disha as a pawn in the great game of international propaganda against Modi and India.
People may have sympathy for a young college student Disha Ravi, but it is a bitter truth that she had a role in the mayhem on Republic Day, when the national flag was dishonoured and policemen were attacked with swords and tractors. It was she who along with other co-conspirators like Nikita Jacob and Shantanu created and circulated the tool kit that caused violence in Delhi.
Delhi Police is still trying to connect the missing pieces in this jigsaw puzzle. People are being exposed and evidences are being placed before the courts. Already, Pakistan is trying to play up the arrest of Disha Ravi on social media. Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf posted on Twitter how the Indian government led by Modi and RSS is trying to stifle the voice of dissent, with the arrest of 22-year-old Disha Ravi.
Those in India who are criticizing Delhi Police for Disha’s arrest must know that the court has ordered her custody only after going through the preliminary evidences. We can understand Khalistani and Pakistani supporters making such noises, but the saddest part is that our leaders in opposition are speaking in Pakistan’s language. The only common aim seems to be to tarnish Modi’s image as a world leader.
Rahul Gandhi probably thinks that the core strength of BJP is Modi’s image that has brought consecutive victories for the party. He probably feels that until and unless Modi’s image is not dented, it would be difficult for the Congress to defeat BJP.
For the last six years, Rahul’s actions have concentrated more or less on denigrating Modi, whether by alleging that he has cronies like Ambani, Adani, by demanding evidences of surgical strikes and Balakot air strike, his open support to ‘tukde-tukde’ gang in JNU, his baseless allegations of corruption in Rafale purchase, his allegations of Modi ‘ceding’ Indian territory to China, and Modi pushing farmers into a dark future.
The problem is: none of Rahul’s allegations has stuck so far. In every elections, Modi and his party have scored victories. Modi’s popularity graph is on the rise and people have stopped believing in Rahul’s allegations. On the contrary, people believe that Modi is a leader who cannot be swayed by what Rahul calls his ‘cronies’ like Ambani or Adani. Anybody who knows Modi can vouch for the fact that he is a leader who cannot be swayed or browbeaten. On dealing with China or Pakistan, Modi has always emerged triumphant and taught lessons to India’s enemies.
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