Why raid on Harsh Mander is a huge blow to George Soros

•  Enforcement Directorate, the premier financial crime investigation agency, has raided the house of Harsh Mander, a former member of erstwhile National Advisory Council (NAC).
•  Mander, an ex-IAS officer, is an Advisory Board member of the international grantmaking network founded by George Soros, Open Society Foundations.
• The Enforcement Directorate – which investigates large-scale financial crimes – is acting on this FIR, which invoked charges like cheating, breach of trust, and criminal conspiracy.

Enforcement Directorate, the premier financial crime investigation agency, has raided the house of Harsh Mander, a former member of erstwhile National Advisory Council (NAC) constituted by Sonia Gandhi to run the proxy government when Manmohan Singh was Prime Minister, in money laundering case.

Mander, an ex-IAS officer, is an Advisory Board member of the international grantmaking network founded by George Soros, Open Society Foundations. The Open Society Foundations is known for making grants to organisations that work to destabilise foreign governments. 

The raid by ED is a big blow to George Soros’s plan to sponsor anti-India activities through proxy organisations like the one run by Harsh Mander named Centre for Equity Studies, which fashions itself as a think-tank and carries out anti-national activities. 

The Delhi Police FIR, filed under instruction from the NCPCR, or National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, has alleged financial irregularities connected to the two children’s homes – Umeed Aman Ghar (for boys) and Khushi Rainbow Home (for girls) – in Delhi’s Mehrauli.

The Enforcement Directorate – which investigates large-scale financial crimes – is acting on this FIR, which invoked charges like cheating, breach of trust, and criminal conspiracy.

As all three are ‘scheduled offenses’, meaning the agency can take cognizance of the FIR and probe proceeds of the alleged crime linked to the FIR registered by Delhi Police.

Harsh Mander has been for very long associated with anti-national activities. During his stint at the NAC, Mander was essentially serving as an “advisor” to the Central Government. In this capacity, he along with, Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey had approached the then President Pranab Mukherjee with a mercy plea for 26/11 terrorist Kasab. Not just Kasab, Mander, who held a lot of influence during the UPA era owing to his membership in the NAC, had also filed mercy pleas to save the Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru from the gallows.

Even after his stint with the NAC, he has persisted with international organisations that have sinister goals. His George Soros connection, for instance, reveals his involvement with individuals and groups of individuals that want to curb nationalistic sentiment within India.

Soros, a Jewish-American philanthropist, hates nationalism and loves to interfere in the internal matters of other countries. During his World Economic Forum (WEF) speech, Soros had dedicated 1 billion US Dollars towards fighting nationalism- investments that might entail sit-in protests, roadblocks of the kind we saw in Shaheen Bagh. One of the statesmen he categorically condemned was Prime Minister Modi, thus making it clear that Soros wants to weaken Indian nationalism, and PM Modi is his immediate target as a necessary corollary.

Not just George Soros, Harsh Mander is also linked to the Ara Pacis Initiative (API). He is a member of the API’s Council for Dignity, Forgiveness, Justice, and Reconciliation. The API was founded by an Italian actress, Maria Nicoletta Gaida. But what is important here are the details that make the API and Mander’s connection with this organisation rather disconcerting.

The API’s website states, “The Ara Pacis Initiative was inaugurated on April 21, 2010, by the Mayor of Rome, with the High Patronage of the President of the Republic of Italy and under the auspices of the Office of the Prime Minister of Italy and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

Therefore, there is a clear involvement of the Italian state having been inaugurated “under the auspices of the Office of the Prime Minister of Italy and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” It will not be incorrect to state that the entity is an arm, or at least, an extended arm of the Italian state.

A Reuters story even describes the API as “an organisation dedicated to conflict prevention and resolution that is backed by the Italian foreign ministry.”

The people associated with the Italian state and people as dangerous as George Soros need to be kept under the state vigil. Soros is responsible for the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, which affected Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Brazil, Russia, and of course, Thailand- the epicentre of the crisis. He was also accused of ‘Trying to destroy the economy of Hong Kong’. 

Not to mention that Soros has been banned (kicked out) from the Philippines, Hungary, Russia, Turkey, Poland, and Pakistan. 

Mander should be arrested and thrown behind bars once the money-laundering cases are proved because people like him are a grave danger to Indian society.