Omkar Koul
Unfortunately, in India that is Bharat, the Bhagwa terror/saffron terror narrative is under focus again due to its revival by Congress and Samajwadi Party leaders. The hard fact and reality is that Sanatan Dharma, which is erroneously called Hinduism or Hindu Dharma, is being abused by the grand old party Congress, its top leader and scion of the Gandhi family, Rahul Gandhi, as well as Akhilesh Yadav and other leaders of the SP. They denounce and defame Hinduism and appease Muslims.
Under a deliberate and planned game plan, opposition leaders are defaming, denouncing, and opposing Hinduism. This time, the Congress has crossed all limits by accusing RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat of spreading saffron terror in the country. The fact remains that there is no such thing as saffron terror, but Congress, SP, CPI(M), and other parties and their leaders are maliciously defaming and belittling Sanatan Dharma, thereby denigrating Hinduism — a religion of peace, brotherhood, and mutual coexistence.
Hindu-bashing and Sanatan-bashing have become pastimes of Congress, SP, and other parties who regularly spew venom against Hinduism while maligning the most tolerant way of life that Hinduism represents.
In a series of coordinated statements, BJP leaders tore into the Congress, claiming that the Malegaon blast case was driven by political vendetta aimed at defaming Hindu saints and nationalists. Seventeen years after a bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded in Malegaon — killing six people and injuring over 100 — a special NIA court in Mumbai on Thursday acquitted all seven accused, including BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit.
The court said the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and cited the absence of cogent and reliable evidence. It also directed the Maharashtra government to pay ₹2 lakh to the families of those killed and ₹50,000 to those injured.
BJP allies slammed the Congress for its Hindu terror narrative. Reacting to the verdict, top BJP leaders accused the Congress-led UPA government of fabricating the “Hindu terror” narrative to target political opponents. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said police acted under pressure during the UPA government and demanded an apology from Congress. “The fake Hindu terror narrative set by the UPA for minority appeasement has been exposed by the court order,” he said. “Congress should apologise to the acquitted accused and the entire Hindu society.”
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma echoed the sentiment: “The verdict proves there is no such thing as Hindu terror,” he said. “No Hindu, by philosophy, can be a terrorist.”
Former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Eknath Shinde called the verdict “a slap on the face of those who called it saffron terror” and claimed it was a conspiracy to defame Hindutva. “Innocent people were jailed for seventeen years,” he said.
Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad alleged that the entire case was “a Congress conspiracy to spread the Hindu terror theory.” He added, “Colonel Purohit fought against terrorists in Kashmir, and he was framed. Sadhvi Pragya could not even walk after the torture she suffered. This was all vote-bank politics,” he said at a press conference.
The BJP says the Malegaon blast acquittals destroyed the Congress conspiracy to manufacture a false narrative of Hindu terror. The party demanded apologies from Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, and compensation for those acquitted, including ex-BJP MP Pragya Thakur. It also accused Congress of raising a fake spectre of “saffron terror” to appease Muslims for political purposes and vote-bank gains.
The acquittal of all seven accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, BJP claimed on Thursday, July 31, 2025, destroyed the Congress’s conspiracy to manufacture a false narrative of “Hindu terrorism” to stop the rise of BJP leaders Narendra Modi and Amit Shah and to appease Muslims.
Welcoming the court ruling, the party demanded an apology from Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. It sought compensation for those acquitted and called for action against those involved in torturing and falsely implicating them.
An Indore man discharged in the Malegaon blast case said it was a conspiracy to malign the Hindu community. “It was a well-calculated conspiracy of the Congress party for sheer vote-bank politics. We welcome the court’s decision, which has again proved that you cannot falsify the truth by your diabolical design for too long. Truth has the uncanny habit of reappearing with alarming regularity,” former Union Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said at a press conference.
“Colonel Purohit, a highly decorated army officer who fought terrorism in Kashmir, was framed. Pragya Thakur, a very good leader, was accused of bringing a bomb on her motorcycle. She was tortured for 10–15 days, to the extent that it became difficult for her to walk later,” he added.
Mr. Prasad said that under the Congress-led UPA regime, then Home Minister P. Chidambaram had spoken about “saffron terror” at a Director-Generals of Police Conference in 2012. Another Home Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, had also talked about “saffron terror.” Rahul Gandhi, during a conversation with the American Ambassador, had said that “Hindu terror is more deadly than Lashkar-e-Taiba.” “It’s still in the WikiLeaks files,” he said.
The BJP leader recalled that he had held a press conference at that time to counter Mr. Chidambaram’s remarks and had pointed out that there is saffron colour in India’s tricolour, and that Indian saints also wear saffron. “This is the colour of India’s cultural and spiritual traditions. Isn’t it?” he said.
Mahayuti leaders demanded an apology from the Congress for “humiliating Hindu society” with its false claims. Reacting to the special court’s decision to acquit all seven accused in the Malegaon bomb blast case that claimed six lives in Maharashtra in 2008, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis took to X and posted the statement: “Terrorism was never saffron, it is not, and will never be.”
He claimed that the police back then were acting under pressure from the UPA government while probing the case. “Congress should apologise to the nation for spreading the false narrative of saffron terrorism! With all the accused being proven innocent in the Malegaon bomb blast case, the conspiracy of the Congress-led UPA government to humiliate Hindu society through saffron terrorism has been exposed today.”
Stating that he would not blame the police for acting under pressure, he added, “The term ‘Islamic terrorism’ came to be used after the 9/11 attack, and to counter it, the UPA coined the term ‘saffron terrorism.’”
To sum up, it can be said that the saffron terrorism narrative of the Congress proved totally wrong, and the party stands exposed for manufacturing a false narrative of saffron terror.
(The author is a freelance writer and a KP activist)
