Complainant against Ashoka Univ Professor has been there, done that

However, Bhatia says, politics was never out of the picture. “My family has long been associated with the RSS and BJP,” she explains, adding that she followed suit soon after settling down in Faridabad.

In 2000, Bhatia was elected municipal councillor of Faridabad on a BJP ticket and became the city’s deputy mayor. She contested as councillor again in 2010 but lost “because the Congress fielded six women candidates named Renu Bhatia”.

Bhatia’s long wait for a breakthrough ended only in January 2022, when she was picked to become chairperson of the Haryana State Commission for Women by the BJP government.

Her three-year-tenure at the commission was supposed to end on January 18, 2025. But the Haryana government extended her tenure “until a further order on existing terms and conditions of service”.

Bhatia has certainly had an eventful time in the job. Months after she took over as chairperson of the women’s body, a video of her arguing with a woman police officer and rebuking her over a case of marital dispute had gone viral.

In 2023, Bhatia took up a sexual harassment case and pushed for its probe after more than a hundred girls came forward with a complaint against the principal of a school in Jind district.

In December 2024, Bhatia was again in the news after a video surfaced of her threatening to deport a man, presumably an NRI. Bhatia explained that it was in response to a case filed by the man’s wife.

It isn’t the first time the Haryana State Commission for Women under Bhatia has gone after the professor of a private university in the state either, on almost the same charges.

In December 2023, the panel filed an FIR against O P Jindal Global University professor Dr Sameena Dalwai, who specialises in gender, sexuality and law, for “outraging the modesty” of women students by showing them profiles on a dating app.

In Mahmudabad’s case, Bhatia as chairperson of the Haryana Commission for Women has lodged a case under charges of “statements conducing to public mischief”, “word, gesture or act intended to insult modesty of a woman”, and “act endangering sovereignty, unity, and integrity of India”.

This followed a post by Mahmudabad, the Head of the Political Science Department at Ashoka University, on May 8, saying: “I am very happy to see so many right wing commentators applauding Colonel Sofiya Qureshi (who was part of the daily briefings on Operation Sindoor) but perhaps they could also equally loudly demand that the victims of mob lynchings, arbitrary bulldozing and others who are victims of the BJP’s hate mongering be protected as Indian citizens. The optics of two women soldiers presenting their findings is important, but optics must translate to reality on the ground otherwise it’s just hypocrisy.”

Signing off with a “Jai Hind!”, Mahmudabad said: “For me the press conference was just a fleeting glimpse – an illusion and allusion perhaps – to an India that defied the logic on which Pakistan was built… (showing) that an India, united in its diversity, is not completely dead as an idea.”

The other complainant: Yogesh Jatheri

The sarpanch of village Jatheri in Sonipat district, Yogesh is a member of the BJP Yuva Morcha.

He filed the complaint against Mahmudabad as he was “trying to instigate people’s feelings” at a sensitive time, Yogesh tells The Indian Express.

“I have a law background. I know the law very well. As a member of the BJP youth wing, I have been visiting colleges and universities for a long time. He [Mahmudabad] said the government was working against the Muslim community and that Colonel Sofiya Qureshi addressed the press briefings just as a show. He made these statements in my presence. Four to five others were also present when he said this,” Yogesh, who claims a long family association with the Army, said.

Yogesh added that Mahmudabad also said that tensions at the Indo-Pak border were a “result of some mentally unstable soldiers”. “These remarks are provocative and he [Mahmudabad] spread communal disharmony… This is why I lodged a complaint seeking legal action against him.”

In his social media post, Mahmudabad wrote: “There are those who are mindlessly advocating for a war, but they have never seen one, let alone lived in or visited a conflict zone… War is brutal. The poor suffer disproportionately and the only people who benefit are politicians and defence companies.”

The FIR filed by Yogesh accuses Mahmudabad of “promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion”, “assertions prejudicial to national integration”, “act endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India, and “malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings”.