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News18
08-07-2025
- Business
- News18
NITI Aayog Calls For Quality Overhaul In Pharma, Industry Flags Challenges
Last Updated: Concerns raised included the increasing number of Not of Standard Quality drug alerts, workforce issues and unsustainable drug pricing policies In a high-level consultation led by NITI Aayog on Monday, leading pharmaceutical industry bodies raised pressing concerns over drug quality, regulatory enforcement, and systemic gaps in technical manpower and infrastructure. The meeting, chaired by Dr VK Paul (Member, Health), was aimed at aligning India's pharmaceutical standards with global benchmarks. Held at NITI Aayog headquarters, the central focus was to assess the challenges hampering the production of high-quality, globally acceptable pharmaceutical products, and to chart a strategy for reform. The Niti Aayog, in its invite, mentioned that it aims to discuss the challenges in producing high-quality medicines while also upholding the title of pharmacy to the world. 'A rigorous focus on quality is also essential to ensure patient safety and trust in public health in the domestic market. With a strong network of over 3,000 pharmaceutical companies and approximately 10,500 manufacturing units across the country, it is essential to invest in and uphold the highest quality standards for pharmaceuticals," highlighted the letter sent to various industry associations, including Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), Indian Drug Manufacturers' Association (IDMA), Laghu Udyog Bharati, Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association (India), Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI), Federation of Pharma Entrepreneurs (FOPE) among others. Industry Flags NSQ and Workforce Issues One of the dominant concerns raised was the increasing number of Not of Standard Quality (NSQ) drug alerts. Industry representatives pointed to poor educational standards in pharmacy colleges, which, they said, result in technically under-qualified personnel who are unable to handle the drug inspectors coming for audit. 'The industry highlighted that the gap in technical competence is directly impacting manufacturing quality," an industry official told News18, requesting anonymity. Representatives from the Confederation of Indian Pharmaceutical Industry (CIPI) highlighted the structural and financial constraints faced by MSMEs, especially in conducting stability studies, a critical requirement for ensuring drug quality. They urged the government to provide financial support for MSMEs to build necessary infrastructure, arguing that this could significantly reduce NSQ cases. The industry also advocated for exclusive engagement meetings between policymakers and MSME associations to address deep-rooted, sector-specific issues that are often overlooked in broader policy discussions. In a strong counter-point, RSS-led Laghu Udyog Bharati challenged the narrative that MSMEs are primarily responsible for quality failures. 'US FDA failure by large corporations is generally overlooked in India and small deviations by micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are given more attention. This has created a bad image of the MSME industry. Big pharma companies are facing product recalls on a regular basis but no one talks about them," Dr Rajesh Gupta, who represents Laghu Udyog Bharati and supports MSME industry, said. 'The myth of 'Brand Bharat' created by large corporations ignores the fact that MSMEs manufacture and sell 97.3 per cent of India's drugs. Yet, only 2.64 per cent are NSQ-declared, and often with no reported harm to patients," Gupta told Newa18, mentioning that he presented the same argument before the government officials in the meeting. Drug Pricing Pressures: Quality vs Affordability Concerns were also raised around the unsustainable drug pricing policies of the price watchdog, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority. Industry participants cautioned the government that low price ceilings have made it unviable for manufacturers to produce quality formulations. As an example, they cited cotrimoxazole, an essential antibiotic, which has reportedly vanished from the domestic market due to pricing stress. 'Government wants us to upgrade quality standards and we will do that. But that comes at a cost. We are investing in technology as well as a skilled workforce. While investments are increasing, we are not allowed to increase prices of products. Hence, we are being pushed to discontinue products," said an industry official part of the meeting. Regulator's Firm Stand on GMP and Accountability Drug Controller General of India Dr Rajeev Singh Raghuvanshi, as per industry sources who were part of the meeting, gave a clear message to the industry, saying: 'There will be no relaxation in enforcement of GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices)." 'Emphasising accountability, he outlined a stricter protocol for handling NSQ cases—companies would now face license suspension after a two-week show-cause notice—with reinstatement only upon satisfactory Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) review," said the official quoted above. 'He also expressed disappointment with the role of pharma manufacturing associations, urging them to take more responsibility in ensuring that member units uphold quality norms." top videos View all In the ongoing debate between Indian Pharmacopoeia (IP) and WHO-GMP, the DCGI clarified that the two should be seen as parallel and non-conflicting systems. Overall, Gupta and other industry representatives who attended the meeting told News18 that senior government officials, including DCGI and Dr Paul listened attentively to their concerns. The officials were described as patient and receptive, urging the industry to submit their queries in writing for further consideration. 'Everyone was considerate and gave us ample time to present our concerns," Gupta from LBU said. tags : niti aayog pharma sector VK Paul Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: July 08, 2025, 10:06 IST News india NITI Aayog Calls For Quality Overhaul In Pharma, Industry Flags Challenges
The Print
01-07-2025
- Politics
- The Print
'Villain Indira' vs 'hero RSS' binary is Sangh Parivar myth. Truth is more complicated
The BJP and Sangh Parivar's eagerness to mark this day is not surprising. The Emergency and its aftermath were turning points in the RSS-led Sangh Parivar's political trajectory that led to it being catapulted to power in New Delhi. Nothing suits the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) better than positioning Indira Gandhi as the dictatorial 'villain' against whom it waged a 'heroic' battle. The BJP-led government has announced 25 June, the date when the Emergency came into effect in 1975, as 'Samvidhan Hatya Diwas'. The BJP has held a series of programmes denouncing Indira Gandhi. A book, The Emergency Diaries, which propagates how Prime Minister Narendra Modi was affected by the Emergency, has been launched. Modi has divested himself of self-righteous statements about democracy being 'arrested' in 1975. Fifty years after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency, the ruling BJP is piously declaring how it fought a valiant battle for 'democracy' against 'great dictator' Indira Gandhi. But so called 'villainous Indira' vs so-called 'heroic RSS' is a cunningly crafted binary, a fictional morality play, a mythification of history, a fairy tale that is not borne out by a careful analysis of how the Emergency came about and what role the RSS played in the events before 25 June 1975. The 'Indira-Hatao' plank As Indira Gandhi's biographer—my book Indira: India's Most Powerful Prime Minister was published in 2017—I had the opportunity to closely research the events leading up to 25 June 1975. The assiduously orchestrated and zealously propagated Sangh Parivar version of a power-hungry Indira Gandhi clamping down on democracy protestors to keep herself in power is part of a much more complicated story. In the run-up to the Emergency, there was a concerted attempt by the RSS and its allies to bring down an elected government through street power, mass agitations, threats of sabotage, paralysing essential services, and even inciting the armed forces to mutiny. True, Indira Gandhi was no beacon of democracy after 1971. Hailed as a 'goddess' after India's victory in the Bangladesh war, she had developed an overweening personality cult and a deeply narcissistic sense of her own power. She tended to see any challenge to her leadership as somehow illegitimate. She had gone from the darling of the masses in the 1971 'Garibi Hatao' election campaign to a monarchical figure who viewed the people as subjects and had turned the entire Congress party into a personalised instrument at her command. But nor was the role played by the then Bharatiya Jana Sangh ( the political front of the RSS and precursor to the BJP) and the RSS, either constitutional or democratic. In fact the Jana Sangh-RSS role needs to be assessed objectively. The Jana Sangh-RSS played a highly Machiavellian, destructive, and anarchist role and attempted to bring down the extremely popular Indira Gandhi (elected by a massive majority) through decidedly unconstitutional and undemocratic means. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh, founded in 1951 by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and backed and run by the RSS, was a political flop throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Tainted by its 'Hindutva' ideological association with the assassins of Mahatma Gandhi (Nathuram Godse, a member of RSS), the Jana Sangh-RSS were regarded as politically 'untouchable'. It was consigned to the margins of the national mainstream for decades. The most prominent figure of the Jana Sangh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was a star in Parliament. He made blistering speeches from 1957 onwards, but the Jana Sangh remained marooned in the political wilderness, trapped in an acute image crisis it could not shake off. The RSS had stayed aloof from the Gandhian freedom struggle; it had no 'freedom fighter' credentials. Vajpayee himself was saddled with reports that he had once sided with the British during the Quit India movement. In the general elections of 1952, 1957, and 1962, the Jana Sangh was wiped out. The 'Hindu' party was able to win only 3, 4, and 14 seats, respectively. In these years, the Jana Sangh was buried by Jawaharlal Nehru's colossal presence. The breakthrough for the Jana Sangh came in the elections of 1967, the thunderclap election in which, after Nehru died in 1964, the once-towering Nehruvian Congress slumped to a wafer-thin majority of only 283 seats. In 1967, the Jana Sangh won 35 seats. This election came to be described as one that saw the disappearance of the 'Congress system'. The Jana Sangh was ecstatic with its 1967 result. But its hopes of expansion were rapidly dashed in 1971 when the Indira Gandhi-led Congress swept to a massive 352-seat win, once again crushing the Jana Sangh to 22 seats. It was a defeat that led to Vajpayee stepping down as party president. The anti-Congress 'Indira Hatao' plank, which the Jana Sangh-RSS had deployed in the 1971 elections, crumbled. In assembly polls of 1972, the Jana Sangh was pummeled, losing state after state. The 'Hindu' party was reduced to a dwarf, buried by the second generation of Nehru-Gandhis. To make matters worse, Deendayal Upadhyaya, the moving force behind the Jana Sangh's organisation, died in 1968, leaving the RSS-backed party with a leadership void as it lurched from defeat to defeat. The early 1970s thus saw the Jana Sangh-RSS frustrated and panic-stricken. It was chafing at its defeats, agitated that once again, Nehru's daughter Indira, would consign it to oblivion. Unsettled by the magnitude of Indira Gandhi's win, the Jana Sangh-RSS restlessly looked for ways to claw its way back to some relevance. When the monsoon failed for three consecutive years—1972, 1973 and 1974—the first 'oil shock' or massive four-fold rise in petrol prices hit in 1973, food shortages and price rise rampaged through the country. India was plunged into a full-blown economic crisis, and public discontent began to grow. A desperate-for-power Jana Sangh-RSS sensed an opportunity. In 1973, MS Golwalkar, the somewhat mystical, non-political RSS sarsanghchalak, died and was replaced by MD 'Balasaheb' Deoras. The hard-nosed Deoras was a more politically attuned figure keen to push the RSS and Sangh Parivar into a more populist, political and activist role. In 1974, the RSS student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the Jana Sangh-RSS led violent 'Nav Nirman' protests in Gujarat. The Jana Sangh, along with socialists and the anti-Indira Congress (O), pushed to oust the chief minister of Gujarat and get the Gujarat assembly dissolved, and succeeded. The anti-Indira movement then spread to Bihar. The ABVP also played a leading role in the Bihar student protests, which began at this time. The Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti, a forum created for the Bihar students' agitation, was dominated by ABVP activists. In Bihar, the Jana Sangh and allies pushed to dissolve the Vidhan Sabha through coercive tactics. The RSS had already reached out to the veteran socialist Jayaprakash Narayan, or 'JP', through RSS men like Nanaji Deshmukh. JP allied with the Jana Sangh-RSS in his quest for 'total revolution.' This enabled the RSS, for the first time, to find space in national politics. In JP, the RSS found a 'respectable' leader who could be its bridge to joining the political mainstream. In 1974, the Jana Sangh was already giving open calls for widespread street action. 'Our response cannot be confined to a parliamentary level,' Vajpayee said in 1974 at a Jana Sangh conference in Hyderabad. 'The war has to be fought in the streets, in the chambers and legislatures, in the corridors of power, in all sensitive power centres of the establishment.' 'Anti-Congress parties are obstructing development…their aim is to paralyse the government,' Indira Gandhi said at the time. N. Govindacharya, an RSS pracharak who would later go on to become a key figure in the BJP, was based in Patna in these years. He played a central role in organising mass protests in Bihar through the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti and mobilising RSS cadres. The anti-Indira movement coalesced around the figure of JP, but the bulk of the foot soldiers were made up of the ABVP and RSS. Socialists and Congress (O) were also part of the agitation, but their numbers were nowhere near equal to the huge organisational breadth of the massive RSS network. The anti-Indira groups caused so much violence, so many bandhs and protests across Bihar, that The Hindu wrote in an editorial in 1974: 'Should Mr Narayan usher in what is disorder and disrespect for law and order and the democratic set up as a whole?' Between 1972 and 1975, mayhem reigned across north India. There were strikes, gheraos, bandhs, violence, processions and student agitations. In all these movements, RSS and ABVP activists played a crucial role. The 1974 railway strike, involving two million workers, was led by a socialist, the fire-breathing trade unionist George Fernandes. But even he made his intentions clear when he openly declared that he aimed to organise a strike that would 'bring down Indira Gandhi's government.' The strike brought the railways to a standstill. George Fernandes would later go on to ally with the BJP. Then West Bengal Chief Minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray, an old friend of Indira Gandhi, wrote her a letter in early 1975 asking that lists of RSS workers be compiled, as he suspected they were the main force behind the disturbances. 'A secret telex message should go to every chief minister to prepare a list of all prominent Ananda Marga and RSS members in his state,' Ray wrote to Gandhi. So intense were the disturbances that on 2 January 1975, then railway minister LN Mishra was killed in a bomb blast in Samastipur railway station. Allegations were made against the secretive Ananda Marga group. There was an attempt on the life of the then Chief Justice, AN Ray, when hand grenades were thrown into his car. After these incidents, Indira Gandhi became convinced that there was a conspiracy against her government and that her life was in danger from the protestors. Her anxieties grew that India faced mass violence. In a scathing line, which reveals her views on the Jana Sangh-RSS, Indira Gandhi had said: 'If the Jana Sangh comes to power, it will not need any Emergency. They will chop off heads.' The methods used by the anti-government protestors in the early 1970s, 'are frankly coercive and undemocratic,' wrote The Pioneer. 'Trying to oust the (Bihar) Ministry, gherao the legislature, spreading disaffection among the police…and attempting to start a 'no tax' campaign may trigger off violence on an epochal scale,' the paper wrote in an editorial. 'The anti-Indira Gandhi movement used extra-constitutional and disruptive methods of protest, based on a rejection of democratic procedures,' writes PN Dhar in his detailed book Indira Gandhi, The 'Emergency', and Indian Democracy. The hardcore of this violent, undemocratic movement was the Jana Sangh-RSS. The number of RSS members arrested bears this out: 1,05,000 RSS activists were detained by the RSS's own admission. Also read: India deserves better than M-O-D-I: Misinformation, Opacity, Distractions, Incompetence Flattering the 'dictator' The declaration of the Emergency and the torments of those years have been justifiably pilloried. Indira Gandhi converted India into a spooky, stalled democracy, bullied the judiciary, and dragooned institutions into subordination. But those who led turbulent movements against her, who pushed India into strikes, civil unrest, killings, and mass protests, were not exactly democracy's angels. The Jana Sangh-RSS was intent on overthrowing an elected government and seizing power in any way they could from an immensely popular leader they could not defeat in elections. After being jailed by Indira Gandhi, the RSS suddenly changed tack completely and began to eat humble pie. Deoras, imprisoned in Yerawada Central Jail, wrote several letters praising Indira Gandhi and promising cooperation with government programmes. These letters do not show him as Gandhi's implacable ideological opponent. Rather, Deoras comes across as an admirer—fawning, obsequious, and eager to offer the RSS' services to the Indira Gandhi government. There is no mention in these letters about democratic rights. On 22 August 1975, Deoras writes to Gandhi: 'From the jail I listened with rapt attention to your broadcast message relayed from AIR and addressed to the nation on August 15, 1975. Your speech was suitable for the occasion and well balanced.' This is my humble prayer to you that you shall kindly keep the above in view and shall lift the ban on RSS. If you think it proper, my meeting with you will be a source of pleasure to me.' On 10 November, in another letter, Deoras writes that if RSS workers are set free, lakhs of volunteers will be utilised for 'national upliftment.' The RSS's view of Indira Gandhi was shot through with both admiration and wariness, what the historian Christophe Jafrelot calls 'both stigmatisation and emulation'. While the RSS strained every nerve to oust her from office in the 1970s, it became an admirer of the 'strong state' post-1975. Deoras even tried to meet Gandhi when he was released after 18 months, but she refused. Interestingly, after Indira Gandhi returned as Prime Minister in 1980, she herself flirted with Hindu politics, visiting dozens of temples and shrines and performing yagnas and Lakshachandi paath. In the Moradabad riots of 1980, she was accused of pandering to Hindu sentiments, and in 1983, she attended the inauguration of the Bharat Mata Mandir in Haridwar. In the Jammu & Kashmir assembly polls of 1983, she (by now under tremendous pressure from pro-Khalistan Sikh militancy in Punjab) played the 'Hindu nationalism' card by accusing her opponents of being secessionists. Indira Gandhi saw the RSS as her prime opponent, but in her later years, with the growing profile of the RSS, she recognised the importance of the Hindu vote bank. Sangh Parivar mythmaking The Jana Sangh-RSS opposition to Indira Gandhi in the run-up to the Emergency was not exactly a 'principled' struggle. It was a brazen quest for power and using street agitations and chaos to somehow force her out of office. However, once she cracked down on RSS, it showed a ready eagerness for compromise. Anarchist, unconstitutional methods were used. JP even called on the people to 'de-recognise' the Indira government, not pay tax and called on the armed forces not to obey government orders they considered wrong. The Jana Sangh-RSS and allies pushed the country to the brink, yet once the Emergency was declared and opposition leaders imprisoned, the movement quickly fizzled out precisely because it lacked strong convictions. Today, the BJP is propagating that a noble-minded RSS fought for 'democracy' against a 'dictator.' Not really. The RSS simply wanted to overthrow an elected Prime Minister using whatever means it could, and later had no moral compunctions in compromising, flattering, and pleading with the same 'dictator' who imprisoned them. The 'Indira the Emergency dictator' vs 'RSS-democrats' binary is Sangh Parivar mythmaking. The truth is more complicated. Indira Gandhi was an authoritarian leader who suspended the Constitution, but the RSS-led Sangh Parivar was not and has never been a crusader for democratic values. By leading and participating in an unconstitutional violent movement that tried to pull down a democratically elected government, the RSS was a wholehearted participant in 'Samvidhan-Hatya'. Sagarika Ghose is a Rajya Sabha MP, All India Trinamool Congress. She tweets @sagarikaghose. Views are personal. (Edited by Ratan Priya)
The Wire
25-06-2025
- Politics
- The Wire
The Emergency's True Legacy: How JP's Naivety Empowered the RSS
Fifty years ago, on June 25, 1975, when the Emergency was promulgated, Natwar Singh, a self-appointed Principal Acolyte of the Nehru-Gandhi clan, was India's deputy high commissioner in London. Indira Gandhi's decision to experiment with an authoritarian format left him (and many other liberal souls) flummoxed, and, consequently he sought answers from H.Y. Sharada Prasad, information adviser in the PMO and a born wise man. Natwar Singh lamented that while he could deal competently with India's traditional critics in Britain, he was at a loss when it came to responding to the numerous admirers of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi who could not understand the turn India had taken towards a soft Prasad must have had a ringside view of the developments that led to the June 25 denouement. He took nearly a month before responding, on July 20, gently telling Natwar Singh to make a distinction between 'the minutiae' and 'the essence.' And, as Sharada Prasad most clear-sightedly noted, the essence was that Jayaprakash Narayan's crusade against the government had crossed a red-line when he, wittingly or unwittingly, allowed Nanaji Deshmukh of the RSS to take over as commanding officer of the 'movement.'Sharada Prasad concluded his letter to Natwar Singh with a penetrating observation: '.. the entire operation was necessary to save our political structure. When we speak of our political structure or aims, the leftists speak only of socialism, the Anglo-US-European liberals only of pluralistic democracy, neither group gives much importance to secularism. Secularism is the base of Indian democracy. The cardinal mistake of JP and company was to hand over the controls to RSS and no man in his senses can ever say that an RSS-led opposition front can preserve a system based upon religious tolerance and equality.'How years later, the sarsanghchalak, Mohan Bhagwat, enjoys Z-plus security cover. He is allowed to do his pravachans in Vigyan Bhavan, and otherwise is serenaded as the second most powerful person in the country. Thanks to JP, the RSS, the very organisation that created the eco-system for Nathuram Ghose to fire those fatal shots at the Mahatma, has worked its way to a 'respectable' place in our national imagination. Not just respect, it now has clout, patronage and veto power in our national historian doing an audit 50 years later of this sage of the Emergency era is obliged to ask: how could a man like JP, so learned and so well steeped in an understanding of global forces and ideas battling it out on the boulevards in Europe, fail to foresee how his 'total revolution' cookie would crumble? He had no foot-soldiers, no cavalry, no artillery of his own, no tank divisions; he mistook a motley crowd of various 'vahinis' that had staged tableaus of streets protests and chaos in Patna and Ahmedabad as the vanguard of a revolution. The only outfit that had disciplined cadres was the RSS, and, inevitably, it acquired an operational stranglehold on the 'movement.'Not only did Jayaprakash Narayan choose to be oblivious of history abroad, he even jettisoned his own understanding of the Indian realities and the nature of the RSS's spots. He insisted that he had tried to 'decommunalise them by allowing them to join our movement for total revolution. Any impartial observer would agree that this has been a significant contribution of this movement to the ideal of religious tolerance or secularism as it is called. I have thus tried to strengthen the foundation of secularism by bringing Jana Sangh and the RSS into the secular fold of total revolution.' Those clever men in Nagpur have not since stopped laughing at the saint's touching naiveté.Even though Indira Gandhi and her Emergency were disposed of by the voters in the 1977 Lok Sabha polls, a lasting consequence was that the Janata crowd had developed a soft corner for the RSS. A trenchant critic like Madhu Limaye thought that the 'coming together of a large number of RSS workers and other supporters of the JP movement under the roof of Mrs. Indira Gandhi's jails had promoted better understanding among the RSS cadres and other people.' But when Limaye and others tried to bring the RSS and other pro-JP organizations under one roof, Nagpur's response was a resounding 'no deal.' The Jana Sangh segment of the Janata Party never surrendered its separate identity, its own allegiance and its mysterious loyalty to the RSS, even if this meant the premature collapse of the Morarji Desai government and the return to power of is no secret that Janata Party warlords found Jayaprakash Narayan utterly dispensable the moment they entered their ministerial offices atop Raisina Hill. And when the inevitable squabbles began and JP tried to instil some sense among the factional bosses, Prime Minister Morarji Desai ticked him off for wanting to poke his nose in the Janata Party's internal matters. So much for JP's moral authority. The prophet was without a country, doomed to be biggest loser in the Emergency the other hand, the RSS, has continued to build on its JP-induced respectability and can draw satisfaction at the distance the 'Hindutva' crowd has come. Its frontal outfits, especially the Jana Sangh and now the BJP, continue to pretend to be inspired and guided by the saintly 'Jayaprakash ji' while putting in practices and protocols that constitute the very anti-thesis of what he stood for. JP would, no doubt, be horrified to see the Hindutva forces' strident march on our national has already dealt a rough hand to Indira Gandhi for embarking on a dangerous road 50 years ago; what she did during those dark days could be rolled back by the masses. History will deal an equally rough, if not rougher, hand to Jayaprakash Narayan for rehabilitating the RSS as a normal political force. Fifty years later, Indira Gandhi's excesses pale in comparison to JP's cardinal sin. The RSS is the only winner of that battle five decades Khare was editor of The Tribune.
Indian Express
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
After Operation Sindoor, X account in Canada posts fake news related to Col Sofiya Qureshi; Karnataka Police issue a warning
After a post falsely claiming that supporters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) vandalised the home of Colonel Sofiya Qureshi in Belagavi, Karnataka, surfaced on X, the district police chief said Thursday that the account holder has been warned, and security has been provided to her family. Soon after Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, along with Wing Commander Vyomika Singh and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, briefed the media on Operation Sindoor, social media posts, including fake narratives, went viral on social media. An X handle, @uddinanis867, with verified blue tick, posted, 'Breaking: Disturbing attack on Muslim Indian Army officer's family. Col. Sofiya Qureshi, the newly appointed spokesperson of the Indian Army, has become the latest target of RSS-led hate. According to credible sources, Sofiya's family home in Belagavi (Konnur village) was attacked around 3 am by RSS extremists'. '… The Indian Army has reportedly restricted Col. Sofiya's movement, and her entire family has been moved to Delhi for safety, as her name is now allegedly on the RSS hit list,' it added. Soon after it went viral, Bheemashankar S Guled, Superintendent of Police, Belagavi, said there was no such incident, and also warned action against the account holder. Guled said the fake message came to light after the district's social media monitoring cell noticed it. 'I issued a warning to initiate legal action for spreading the fake news. He immediately removed the post,' he added. Guled said the family has been given security. During their investigation, the police found that the X account holder is from British Columbia, Canada, but said they are yet to get clarity on whether the person is an Indian citizen living in that country. Col Sophiya Qureshi is married to Major Tajuddin Qureshi of the Mechanised Infantry, who hails from the Konnur village in the Belagavi district. Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh Minister Kunwar Vijay Shah, alluding to Col Sophiya Qureshi, said earlier this week that those who widowed India's daughters were taught a lesson by Prime Minister Narendra Modi using 'their own sister'. Shah's remarks triggered a row, with the Congress alleging that it was a reference to Colonel Sophiya Qureshi. Hours after the Madhya Pradesh High Court directed the registration of a First Information Report (FIR) against Shah, the Supreme Court Thursday expressed displeasure over his remarks. The top court was hearing Shah's plea to quash the High Court order. 'A person holding such a public office is expected to uphold certain standards. Every sentence uttered by a minister has to be with responsibility… When this country is going through such a situation… just because you are a minister…,' Chief Justice of India B R Gavai said.
Hans India
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Hans India
Belagavi Police Deny Rumours of RSS-Led Attack on Colonel Sophia Qureshi's In-Laws' Home
Belagavi: Belagavi district police have refuted viral social media claims that members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) attacked the residence of Colonel Sophia Qureshi's father-in-law in the Gokak taluk of Karnataka. The rumour, which spread rapidly across social media platforms, originated from a post on the microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter) by a user identified as Aneesuddin. The post alleged that an RSS-led mob had targeted the house of Gaus Saab Bagewadi, Colonel Qureshi's father-in-law, in Konnur village. Dr Bhimashankar Gulled, Superintendent of Police (SP), Belagavi, dismissed the claims as 'completely false' and urged the public not to fall prey to misinformation. 'There was no such attack. This is fake news. We appeal to the public to verify facts and not be misled by such posts,' he told reporters. Despite the rumour being unsubstantiated, police deployed personnel outside the Bagewadi residence in Konnur as a precautionary measure. Gokak Circle Police Inspector Suresh R.B. visited the location and reviewed the situation. Officers advised the family to avoid unnecessary contact with visitors while the area remains under tight police surveillance. Colonel Sophia Qureshi is a decorated officer of the Indian Army and the first woman to lead an Indian Army contingent abroad for a military exercise. The baseless rumour stirred significant online speculation and drew public attention to the village residence. Police officials confirmed that an investigation is underway to trace the origin of the misleading post and initiate action against those responsible for spreading false information intended to create unrest.
