The Supreme Court rejected the apology of Madhya Pradesh Minister Vijay Shah for his rude and inappropriate remarks against Colonel Officer Sofiya Qureshi. Colonel Sofiya Qureshi was one of three Army officials who briefed the media on Operation Sindoor. The court called Shah’s apology insincere and described it as “crocodile tears”. It also said his remarks were “completely thoughtless”.

The Supreme Court decided to form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the First Information Report (FIR) against Vijay Shah. The SIT will have three senior police officers, and at least one of them must be a woman.

Justice Surya Kant strongly criticised Shah, saying, "The kind of crass comments you made, completely thoughtlessly. What prevented you from making a sincere attempt? We don't require your apology. We know how to deal with it as per the law."

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh also scolded Shah, saying, "We don’t need your apology. You are a public figure, a seasoned politician. You should weigh your words. You were on the verge of using abusive language; you stopped. You were about to use filthy language; you couldn’t find a word, so you stopped."

The controversy started when Madhya Pradesh Tribal Welfare Minister Vijay Shah made a communal remark about a top Army officer at a recent public event. He claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had sent “a sister from the same community” as the terrorists in Pakistan to take revenge for the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam.

Shah said, “Modi ji is striving for the society. Those who widowed our daughters, we sent a sister of their own to teach them a lesson.” He further added, “Now, Modi ji could not have done the same. So he sent a sister from their society so that if you widowed our sisters, a sister of yours would come and undress you."

The Supreme Court called Shah’s statement “the most unfortunate statement”. The court said that as a minister, he should have behaved with much higher standards than others.

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