Karnataka HC tells BJP MLC to apologise for saying deputy commissioner ‘may have come from Pakistan’

The Karnataka High Court on Thursday directed Bharatiya Janata Party MLC N Ravi Kumar to tender a personal apology to Kalaburagi Deputy Commissioner Fouzia Taranum for saying that she “may have come from Pakistan”, Bar and Bench reported.

Taranum is a 2015 cadre Indian Administrative Service officer.

Justice Suraj Govindaraj verbally directed Kumar to apologise to Taranum for his statements and postponed the hearing on his petition challenging the first information report against him to June 6, The Hindu reported.

“Make your apologies to the lady in question, make her accept the apology, place it on record, we will consider then,” Bar and Bench quoted Govindaraj as having said.

The court also said that Kumar should have learned from the recent criticism faced by BJP leader Vijay Shah for his communal remarks purportedly targeting Colonel Sofiya Qureshi.

Shah had on May 13 said that those who had widowed the daughters of India were taught a lesson by Prime Minister Narendra Modi “by sending the sister from their own community”. The BJP leader repeated the remark immediately after saying it the first time.

While he did not name a person, Opposition parties had alleged that the minister was alluding to Qureshi, one of the official spokespersons during the foreign ministry and defence ministry’s media briefings relating to Operation Sindoor.

In the current matter, Kumar, who is the the chief whip of the...

Read more

News