'Entire Nation Ashamed of You': SC Rejects BJP Minister's Apology For Remarks on Col Sofiya Qureshi

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday (May 19) rejected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister Kunwar Vijay Shah’s apology for his remarks directed at Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and directed the Madhya Pradesh director-general of police (DGP) to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the FIR against him.

A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh slammed Shah’s apology asking if they were “crocodile tears” to wriggle out of legal proceedings. 

"The entire nation is ashamed of you. It is up to you how you redeem yourself," the court said, as quoted by Bar and Bench. "The kind of crass comments you made, completely thoughtlessly... We don't need this apology," it added.

Shah, a cabinet minister of Madhya Pradesh and an MP in Lok Sabha, had made derogatory, communal remarks against Colonel Qureshi, who was one of the faces of the press briefings on Operation Sindoor, along with Wing Commander Vyomika Singh.

While addressing a gathering, Shah had painted her as a “sister of terrorists”, alluding to her Muslim identity.

“Jinhone humari betiyon ke sindoor ujade the…humne unki behen bhej kar ke unki aisi ki taisi karwayi (Those [terrorists] who wiped out the vermilion of our sisters [in the Pahalgam attack]… we avenged these people by sending their sister to destroy them),” Shah had said, repeating at least thrice that their community’s sister was sent by Modiji to destroy them.

The Madhya Pradesh high court had initiated a suo motu case against the minister. It had ordered a criminal case to be registered urgently over his derogatory remarks against Colonel Qureshi, stating that his comments were “disparaging and dangerous, not just to the officer in question but to the armed forces itself”.

Shah had then moved the Supreme Court. 

“We saw your videos; you were on the verge of using filthy language,” the top court said in today’s hearing. 

"We are constituting a SIT with three IPS officers and one should be the rank of IG or DGP rank. All of them should be [from] outside the State. It is a litmus test and we want the state to submit the SIT report to us. We would like to have a very close watch," the court added.

The SIT has been asked to submit a report by May 28. Meanwhile, the top court has stayed his arrest and asked him to join the probe.

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