The night of 26/11
—
Mumbai was burning.Marine Drive was ablaze with fire and blood,
taxis were overturned, hotels were ablaze,
and television studios were filled with a single cry—
"Terrorists... Pakistan... Jihad..."
But one man stood alone on the map of India,
who defined terrorism not by religion but by evidence.
That man was #Hemant_Karkare.
#Flashback
A few months earlier, Karkare had opened a case
that was enough to shake the nation.
The perpetrator of the bloody blasts turned out not to be a Muslim...
but a deep network of saffron fundamentalism was discovered.
When those names first surfaced—
a sadhvi, an army officer, faces of religious organizations—
many faces turned pale.
The media, too, had shouted on the first day:
"This was the new face of terrorism!"
But the very next day, the atmosphere changed.
Some channels went silent,
Some politicians became feverish,
and Karkare began receiving calls from all quarters:
"Leave this case there..."
"These people are big..."
"This is not in the country's interest..."
But Karkare's problem was that
he put the country above the individual.
He began to delve deeper into the case: phone data, the sources of explosives, funding,
meeting places, banking—
and gradually the picture became clearer.
Clear enough to instill fear.
Fear not just among the criminals...
but also among those who never sit in the criminal's chair—only those who pull the strings behind the scenes.
Every Indian was in shock,
but the files in Karkare's case also began to burn—
not literally, but systematically.
Documents that should have been in 100 copies
suddenly went missing.
Witnesses began receiving "notices."
Some officers were removed from the case.
And Karkare started receiving messages.
#Flashback_Ends
---And then—26/11 began.
“This is an attack on the country, you should leave the other case and handle this one.”
Karkare understood—
this attack wasn't just on the city,
it was also on the truth.
Still, he left.
He wore a bulletproof jacket—
but the same jacket that the ATS itself had previously described as “poor quality.”
Why was he given that?
His vehicle was sent on the same route
that everyone in the control room had called the most dangerous.
Yet why was that route finalized?
A few minutes later, shots were fired.
The book writes—
The angle of the bullets was extremely strange.
The hit points didn't match the “expected direction.”
The biggest shock—
Karkare's jacket later “disappeared.”
No one knows how.
The jacket is evidence—
Who needed its disappearance?
And then…
The case Karkare held onto until his death—
was slowly shelved.
Names were changed, statements were altered,
charges were "weakened,"
and slowly—the system won.
▪️
--- But the story doesn't end there.
The real game begins after Karkare's death.
The book says—
On the day of Karkare's funeral, some faces showed relief, not grief.
Who were those faces?
Who found solace in Karkare's death?
Who felt victory, not defeat, that night?
And the most frightening question—
Was 26/11 just a terrorist attack,
or a confluence of two agendas?
First—to intimidate India.
Second—to eliminate an officer
who had reached the bottom of the truth.
▪️▪️
The fires of Karkare's funeral hadn't even cooled down...
But some people looked deeply relieved.
The nation was weeping on TV,
but the real players behind the issue—their inner circle—looked "normal."
There was even a hint of triumph on some faces.
This was enough to understand that
Karkare's death wasn't just the terrorists' work accomplished...
someone else's work was also accomplished.
--- The first attack—on the very case Karkare was investigating.
Just eight days after Karkare's death,
the direction of that case changed completely.
Some major claims are found in the book:
Witnesses who had previously provided detailed information about the blasts and the network suddenly began changing their statements.
They suddenly said in court, "We don't remember... We spoke under pressure."
The book asks this question:
Why wasn't this "pressure" there before?
Why did it suddenly arise only after Karkare's death?
- The evidence against the main accused was declared weak.
The evidence on which Karkare had built his case—evidence, call records, motorcycle number, delivery of explosives—
Suddenly, it was declared:
"His credibility is low."
Sudden promotions and transfers of some officers.
Those who were "stuck" in the case—sidelined.
And those who wanted a safe path—promoted.
The system understood—
Karkare is gone, every turn is now easy.
--- A very scary thing is written in the book:
After Karkare's death,
a new sentence started playing on TV—
"Karkare was a good officer, but he had taken the investigation in the wrong direction."
Hearing this sentence, the real game becomes clear.
Meaning:
First, make him a hero,
Then gradually cast doubt on his investigation, and finally change the core of the case.
This is called—
Assassination of direction, not character.
--- And then the shock that numbs the mind
One of the most important documents in Karkare's files was a taping list
which recorded names, call timings, and secret meetings.
The book claims—
that list disappeared from the files after Karkare's death.
Meaning:
Someone went and touched the files.
And it couldn't have been a small person.
.
.
--- But the real fear—is in the "calm faces"
When Karkare was alive,
many people spoke against him,
but when he died—
some of those same people cried the loudest.
Why?
The book says a line that trembles:
"The truth behind real tears is more dangerous than the truth behind fake smiles."
(Fake tears are more dangerous than genuine smiles.)
Meaning—
Those who feared Karkare's survival,
by showing respect after his death,
were spared their own suspicions.
--And finally—the climax of the book
