Most intriguingly, Harsh Mander is the Chairman of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation’s Human Rights Initiative Advisory Board. The controversial… - Nupur J. Sharma

In the past, Harsh Mander has engaged in apologia for Ishrat Jahan, a female Lashkar-e-Taiba operative who was killed in an encounter along with three others by Crime Branch Officials in Gujarat during Narendra Modi’s tenure as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. He was also one of the individuals who had signed a mercy petition for the 1993 Mumbai Attack Terrorist Yakub Memon, was among the 203 persons who had signed the mercy petition for Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab responsible for the Mumbai Terror Attack of 2008, and had signed the mercy petition for Afzal Guru, the mastermind of the 2001 Terror Attack on the Indian Parliament. In 2019, Harsh Mander had filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking the recusal of then Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi from hearing a case relating to the condition of detention camps and deportation of illegal immigrants from Assam. He was also one of the forty ‘activists’ who had filed a review petition in the Court against the Ayodhya Verdict that has paved the way for a Ram Temple at Ayodhya, bringing an end to a historical dispute. He is also part of the coterie that has filed a petition against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Moreover, Harsh Mander is also a member of the Ara Pacis Initiative, an organization backed by the Italian Government and is known to work in collaboration with the Italian Secret Services.

Prashant Bhushan has been at the forefront of these violent protests, part of the coterie of high-profile activists that he is. There were legal teams working to help protesters avoid the consequences for their actions, some of them were headed by advocate Prashant Bhushan himself. The 'advocate' also spread numerous canards against the CAA and NRC during the run-up to February, calling it an attempt to snatch away citizenship from the "poor, Dalits and Muslims".

Sharjeel Imam’s rise to notoriety was driven by a speech he made that went viral on social media. In the said video, he had urged Muslims to cut off North East India from the rest of the country by blocking the Chicken’s Neck. The Chicken’s Neck is a narrow stretch of land of about 22 kilometers located in West Bengal, that connects the northeastern states to the rest of India, with Nepal and Bangladesh lying on either side of the corridor.. The stretch of land is extremely important for Indian national security reasons and considering Sharjeel Imam’s educational qualifications, it is plainly obvious that he was fully aware of the implications of his words. Sharjeel Imam says in the viral video, “If five lakh Muslims are organized then we can cut off the North-east from the rest of India. If we cannot do so permanently, then at least we can do it for months. Our responsibility is to cut Assam from India, only then will the Government hear our voice. If we have to help Assam then we will have to cut Assam from the rest of India.” The worldview of Sharjeel Imam was made obvious from the posts he made on Facebook and the column he penned for far-left media outlet The Wire, which is known to spread fake news.