After Madhya Pradesh Congress spokesperson, Abbas Hafeez, sent a legal notice to Bollywood actor Kareena Kapoor Khan over her social media photographs featuring her wearing a huge vintage emerald pendant bearing a Quranic verse, a Hindu outfit has backed the star.

Demanding the removal of the social media photographs and a public apology over it, Hafeez said his objection was not to the actor wearing the jewellery but to the manner in which the religious inscription was displayed on social media, claiming it had hurt the sentiments of the Muslim community.

Hafeez’s advocate Mohammad Zafar said the pendant carried a verse from the Holy Quran, which is considered sacred in Islam, and that religious practices prescribe ritual ablution before touching or reciting the holy texts.

The legal notice seeks the removal of the photographs and related posts, an apology and an assurance against displaying the religious inscription in a manner considered disrespectful.

Hafeez said the pendant was associated with the heritage of the Begums of Bhopal and was worn as an expression of faith rather than as a fashion accessory.

He, however, clarified that the issue was his personal initiative and should not be linked to the Congress party, its ideology or political position.

The controversy centres on an emerald pendant described by celebrity stylist Rhea Kapoor as an approximately 200-year-old heirloom of the former Bhopal royal family.

Kapoor had shared photographs of Kareena wearing the jewellery as part of her Diwali look.

The historical connection is linked to the Pataudi family as actor Saif Ali Khan’s grandmother Sajida Sultan was the daughter of Hamidullah Khan, the last ruling Nawab of Bhopal.

She married Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, and their son was former Indian cricket captain Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, Saif’s father.

Meanwhile, Hindu Utsav Samiti president Chandra Shekhar Tiwari has extended support to Kareena and said she did not need to apologise to anyone.

“A pendant is meant to be worn around the neck, close to the heart. If it bears Quranic verses, she would not have worn it at any place considered disrespectful. She does not need to apologise to anyone,” Tiwari said.

He also argued that Kareena, being the daughter-in-law of the erstwhile Bhopal royal family, could naturally wear jewellery belonging to her mother-in-law.

The Hindu Utsav Samiti and Sanskriti Bachao Manch have also expressed support for the actor. There was no immediate public response from Kareena Kapoor or her representatives to the legal notice.

Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi has shared her love for Indian food, saying that though she initially took time to adjust, she eventually “fell in love” with cuisines from different parts of the country.

This comes a day after her memoir “Belonging: A Journey of Love” hit bookstands worldwide.

A video posted on the official X account of the veteran Congress leader on Wednesday shows her, along with her daughter and party MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, interacting in the garden of 1, Safdarjung Road residence of the late former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

During the conversation, Priyanka Gandhi also made her mother fondly recall that the latter had even made the Gujarati dish ‘Khaandvi’ for her and her brother, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, during their childhood.

Sharing her fondness for Indian dishes, Sonia Gandhi said: “I love Bengali food. Believe it or not, I love Gujarati food, from Surat.”

However, given her Italian roots, Gandhi said: “It took me time to get used to Indian food. It was difficult for me to enjoy Indian food right at the beginning. I didn’t know how to cook when I came. But later, slowly, I learned.”

The senior leader said that now she loves having kababs, chicken tikka, tandoori chicken, dal makhni, Kashmiri kofta and the ‘haakh’.

To this, Priyanka Gandhi added: “…and ‘Daal Chawal’, we used to have it every day.”

Sonia Gandhi further said: “From the day I came to this house till today, the only dal cooked is ‘arhar ki daal’, nothing else.”

The Wayanad MP then asked her mother about the Gujarati cuisine ‘Khaandvi’ that the latter used to make when the Gandhi siblings were younger, saying: “Didn’t you use to make Khaandvi while we were kids?…can you imagine?”

The CPP Chairperson then said on a lighter note, “Making Khaandvi is easy”.

Further, Priyanka Gandhi recalled: “But, Dadi couldn’t cook,” referring to late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

However, Sonia Gandhi asserted that even though her mother-in-law couldn’t cook, she had a very acute sense of how to make a dish better.

“She knew exactly how to improve something,” she said.

Meanwhile, in the post accompanying the video, the veteran leader shared she fell in love with her husband, former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi, while looking for a good meal.

“Food has always had a special place in my story. It was while looking for a good meal that I met Rajiv, and fell in love,” Sonia Gandhi said.

She added: “Years later, India came to me the same way, one meal at a time. At first the variety amazed me and the spice scared me. Now dal chawal is the taste of home, and I can’t go a day without it.”

The investigation into last year’s Red Fort car blast in Delhi unearthed several crucial details about the attack and the manner in which the Faridabad module had been established.

Investigators were particularly struck by the meticulous planning behind the attack and the precision with which members of the Faridabad module had carried out their assigned tasks.

The members of the module not only managed to stay under the radar of security agencies but also procured thousands of kg of ammonium nitrate without attracting suspicion.

Despite the elaborate planning, however, the Red Fort blast was triggered prematurely, and the execution of the attack ultimately fell short of what the perpetrators had intended.

An official said that the bigger picture that one needs to look into is the radicalisation aspect.

“The module was not merely planning a major attack aimed at causing mass casualties. It had a much larger agenda, which was to overthrow the government in New Delhi,” the official added.

The literature recovered from the Faridabad module, also known as the ‘Doctor’s module’, along with its plans, points to an agenda that went far beyond carrying out terror attacks.

According to the official, the module also intended to impose Sharia law in India. To achieve this objective, its members had allegedly planned to overthrow the Union government, the official said.

Another official said that the mindset of these doctors part of the Faridabad module was dangerous.

“However, the bigger danger is that many more within the country may try and replicate what this module did or may be in the process of doing so,” the official said.

Such radicalisation modules tend to create a chain effect.

Outfits such as the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda inspire such modules to come up in large numbers across the country.

These terror groups are aware that to throw out a government and implement the Sharia law cannot be undertaken by one single module. The idea is to have scores of such modules across the country.

Although these modules would not be interconnected their goals would remain the same, the official said.

An Intelligence Bureau official said that one must also take into account the modus operandi of the Faridabad module.

“They were not just planning on creating an uprising by relying heavily on propaganda material. This group operated in seclusion and planned on a series of deadly attacks across North India. The idea was to inflict maximum damage and then pressurise the government to step down,” the official added.

Post the multiple blasts, such modules usually tend to focus on messaging.

The attack coupled with propaganda makes a module extremely dangerous. Such a modus-operandi also tends to stress out the security mechanism in the country.

Now imagine if multiple such modules are in operation and carry out similar activities simultaneously.

They manage to cover the length and breath of the country, while also posing an immense challenge to the security agencies, the official said.

With their ground operations severely curtailed, the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda have increasingly focused on region-specific radicalisation efforts, aiming to establish Faridabad-style modules in different pockets across states.

These modules are designed to function independently, without any operational links with one another. This makes it difficult for investigators to establish connections between them and trace the wider network behind their activities.

In many ways, such modules resemble lone actors. Their members operate without direct contact with other groups, acquire the skills required to manufacture explosives on their own and independently arrange the materials needed for their activities.

They are also largely self-funded, leaving investigators with little or no financial trail to follow. Modules inspired by the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda have been structured to function much like lone actors, thereby making detection and investigation more challenging, an official said.