1972.

Precisely the year the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) was founded under the encouraging patronage of then education minister Nurul Hasan. For most of its existence ever since, it has become an expansive den of all manner of Communists actively engaged in the subversion of India's history, plagiarism, and embezzlement of taxpayer money, among other crimes. The perpetrators have not only gotten away with it thanks to the protection afforded by their political masters but continue to live their lavish lifestyles unhampered.

In fact, the crimes started less than five years after the ICHR was born.

In 1976-77, (late) Dr Paramatma Saran, a specialist and expert in Indian medieval history and a scholar of the Persian language submitted the manuscript of his English translation of Tarikh-i-Akbari by Muhammad Arif Qandhari to the ICHR.

The manuscript simply vanished.

Sometime later, as a result of Dr Saran's son-in-law's dogged inquiries, an official probe was ordered. The result of the probe was declared by the then deputy director of the Medieval Unit of the ICHR Tasneem Ahmad: the manuscript was "submitted but not traceable."

About 25 years later, the same manuscript - word to word - resurfaced in the form of a PhD thesis submitted by the selfsame Tasneem Ahmad. The foreword to the thesis showered generous praises: