Women's panel summons Ashoka University professor for remarks about Operation Sindoor press briefs

The Haryana State Commission for Women Ashoka University Associate Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad over his comments about the press briefings on Operation Sindoor, which the panel claimed “disparaged women officers in the Indian armed forces and promoted communal disharmony”, The Indian Express reported.

Mahmudabad, the head of the university’s political science department, was directed to appear before the commission on Wednesday.

In a on May 8, Mahmudabad had highlighted the apparent irony of Hindutva commentators praising Colonel Sofia Qureshi.

“Perhaps they could also equally loudly demand that the victims of mob lynchings, arbitrary bulldozing and others who are victims of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s hate mongering be protected as Indian citizens,” he had said.

Mahmudabad had said that the optics of the press briefings by Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh were important, “but optics must translate to reality on the ground otherwise it’s just hypocrisy”.

The “grassroots reality” was “different from what the government tried to show”, but the press briefings showed that “an India, united it its diversity, is not completely dead as an idea”, he said.

In a on Sunday, he said: “Civilians have always been impacted by war… So when you clamour for war or you call for a country to be wiped out then what...