Taiwanese man who killed ‘bully’ flatmate sentenced to 8 years in jail

A High Court in Taiwan on Tuesday sentenced a man to eight years in prison for stabbing his “bully” flatmate to death.

The 26-year-old defendant surnamed Yang was accused of brutally stabbing his 52-year-old flatmate surnamed Wang in their rented apartment in Sanchong District, New Taipei City.

Yang, who had allegedly been enduring the bullying and physical attacks from his flatmate, stabbed the elder man on 10 October 2023 following a scuffle between them.

The altercation broke out when the defendant, who worked at a karaoke bar, failed to thank his flatmate for opening the door for him.

Wang reportedly asked Yang why he did not say “thank you”, to which the defendant responded: “I’m sorry, thank you!” But Wang, unsatisfied with the response, chased after Yang and punched him, reported Taiwan news channel TVBS.

Yang suffered a bruise on his left cheek and retaliated by stabbing Wang three times in the chest and once in the abdomen with a 20-cm-long military knife.

Wang was found in a pool of blood and subsequently rushed to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries, China Times reported.

Upon realising his actions, Yang stood by the body, awaiting the arrival of the police. In custody, Yang claimed he was assaulted by the other person because he didn’t say thank you, which led him to retaliate.

He reportedly told police that he deeply regretted his behaviour.

The New Taipei District Court’s National Judges Division had initially sentenced Yang to eight years in prison for murder, which the prosecution appealed arguing that Yang had failed to reach a settlement with the victim’s family and that the sentence was too light.

However, the Taiwan High Court on Tuesday held that the appeal was groundless, upholding the initial sentencing.

Tattoo artist arrested after woman’s Hindu deity ink sparks backlash

A tattoo artist in India’s eastern city of Bhubaneswar has been arrested after a woman had a local deity’s likeness inked on her thigh.

The tattoo sparked outrage from Hindu groups and devotees.

A case was filed against the tattoo parlour owner in the wake of the protests for allegedly outraging religious sentiments.

The parlour owner, Rocky Ranjan Bisoi, 33, told police that one of his artists, Ashwini Kumar Pradhan, 25, had tattooed the Italian woman’s thigh at her request.

Mr Bisoi had posted a picture of the woman and her tattoo as his WhatsApp status. The image went viral on social media, sparking outrage and prompting him to delete the post.

Subrat Kumar Mohanty, self-described social activist, filed a police complaint against Mr Bisoi after finding a photo of a “foreign woman on the social media account of Rocky Tattooz where Lord Jagannath’s tattoo was seen on her thigh, an objectionable placement”.

Jagannath is the presiding deity of the Jagannath Temple in Puri, Odisha, one of the most revered Hindu shrines and pilgrimage centres in India.

“The tattoo has hurt our religious sentiments,” Mr Mohanty said in his complaint, “and we demand a public apology at Puri.”

The woman, reportedly an Italian NGO worker in Odisha’s Kandhamal region, apologised saying she was a devotee and did not intend disrespect.

A local police official, Biswa Ranjan Senapati, told The Times of india that police would “definitely question her and issue her a warning since she seems to be unaware of our religious sentiments”.

“During the investigation, we found that the foreign lady had visited the tattoo shop on March 1. Under the instruction of the tattoo shop owner Rocky Ranjan Bisoi, Aswini Kumar Pradhan drew the tattoo on the thigh of the woman,” he was quoted as saying by PTI news agency.

In his complaint, Mr Mohanty argued that the parlour owner should have prevented the foreigner from getting the deity’s image tattooed on “an unsuitable body location”.

Mr Bisoi even took a photo of the foreigner with the tattoo and posted it on social media, he added.

Amid the outrage, Mr Bisoi and the foreign woman issued separate video apologies on social media. “I sincerely apologise as the tattoo was inked in our studio. I also seek forgiveness on behalf of the artist who created it. The woman, an Italian national, visited our shop on Saturday, expressing her deep devotion to Lord Jagannath and requesting the tattoo,” he said. “She specifically asked for it to be placed on her thigh as she works in an NGO where tattoos in visible areas of the body are not permitted.”

The woman promised to remove the tattoo once it had healed. She said in a video message on her social media: “I did not want to be disrespectful. I’m a true devotee of Lord Jagannath. I go to the temple every day. I made a mistake and for this, I’m very sorry.”

“I just asked the artist to ink the tattoo in a hidden place. I didn’t want to create any situation. I’m very sorry for this. As soon as the tattoo area heals, I will have it removed. Forgive me for my mistake.”

The parlour owner claimed the woman decided to have the tattoo on her thigh despite him advising against it.

The name and age of the woman was not publicly disclosed.

There have been several incidents over the years of foreigners being accused of hurting the religious sentiments, intentionally or unintentionally, of the local people in Asian nations.

In 2023, a Russian man was deported from Indonesia after a viral photo showed him stripping atop Bali’s sacred Mount Agung. Despite apologising, he was reportedly banned from returning to the country for at least six months.

Vietnam considers relaxing its long-standing two-child policy

Vietnam is relaxing its two-child policy to tackle the sharp decline in birth rate amid concerns for the ageing population.

The health ministry is reportedly considering allowing couples to decide the number and timing of their children after the country’s birth rate plunged into one of the lowest in Southeast Asia.

Vietnam’s birth rate hit a record low in 2024 with the total fertility rate dropping to just 1.91 children per woman, according to the government data. Experts claim the birth rate was below the level needed to keep the population stable to avoid potential labour shortages and socio-economic challenges due to the ageing population.

The country has also been struggling with disparities in birth rates, with some areas reporting lower numbers than others. Ho Chi Minh City recorded the lowest rate in Vietnam at 1.39 children per woman, whereas the northern Ha Giang province had the highest numbers at 2.69.

Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, the deputy health minister, emphasised that the government must act fast to prevent a population decline. “We need to encourage larger families by reducing penalties for having more than two children and offering financial support,” she said, according to Vietnamnet Global.

Vietnam’s birth rate remained stable from 1999 to 2022 at around 2.1, but declined in 2023 and the subsequent year. The birth rate is projected to continue declining, which would mark the end of its golden population period by 2039, according to reports.

The two-child policy was initially imposed in the 1960s to manage the baby boom in the poor and rural population. The rule was scrapped in 2003, before being reimposed in 2008.

Vietnam is among several Asian countries to have reported a steady decline in birth rate due to rising cost of living, economic uncertainty and a cultural shift towards prioritising quality of life.

In countries like South Korea, which has one of the lowest birth rates in Asia, women have cited the heavy emotional and physical burden of raising a child mostly by themselves, financial crisis and lost career opportunities as reasons to set a trend of not giving birth.

Japan last year recorded its lowest number of births in 125 years, falling ninth straight year despite the government’s efforts to reverse the decline. Japan recorded 720,988 births in 2024, five per cent down from the previous year, the health ministry announced in February.

Similarly, China witnessed a record 20 per cent plunge in marriages last year, marking the steepest decline ever recorded despite government initiatives to encourage couples to marry and have children.

China hits back at Trump with fresh tariffs on agricultural goods

China has vowed to fight to the “bitter end” in a trade war with the US, announcing up to 15 per cent tariffs on American imports.

Beijing had threatened to impose countermeasures and reiterated its firm opposition after Trump announced additional 10 per cent levies on Chinese imports. The levies imposed on US products will be implemented from 10 March, the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council said on Tuesday, shortly after Trump’s tariffs took effect.

China will impose a 15 per cent tariff on imported chicken, wheat, corn and cotton, while a 10 per cent tariff will be imposed on sorghum, soybeans, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables and dairy products, according to a statement from the government. China accounted for 17 per cent of American agricultural exports in 2023, according to the US department of agriculture.

Click here for the latest on Trump and his trade war

Beijing’s foreign ministry said the country has never succumbed to bullying or coercion, and that “trying to exert extreme pressure on China is a miscalculation and a mistake”.

“If the United States … persists in waging a tariff war, a trade war, or any other kind of war, the Chinese side will fight them to the bitter end,” spokesperson Lin Jian said on Tuesday.

China also placed 25 American firms under export and investment restrictions on national security grounds, but refrained from punishing any household names. China appears to have targeted at least 10 firms for selling arms to the self-governed island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory.

Beijing also suspended imports of American lumber.

Earlier in the day, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce accused the US of disregarding facts and international trade rules, calling it a typical example of “unilateralism and bullying”.

The additional 10 per cent tariff on Chinese imports will raise the total levies on select Chinese goods to 45 per cent, according to The Washington Post.

In a statement published on its website, the ministry urged Washington to “respect the rights and interests of other countries” and “immediately withdraw the groundless and self-defeating unilateral tariff measures”.

The ministry hoped “that the US will view and handle trade issues in an objective and rational manner and return to the correct path of resolving differences through good faith dialogue at the earliest possible time”.

Charles Wang, the founder of Dragon Pacific Capital Management, warned that the trade war will worsen things for the US, which was already facing challenges on multiple fronts.

“For China, we have reduced trade dependency with the US from 23 per cent to around 13 per cent, so the direct impact is limited. In addition, China’s economy is recovering, and the parliamentary meeting will provide more signals for supporting the economy,” he added.

Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo, said that while the moves from China may not be particularly bold, there is a reason to believe that it wants to be on the negotiating table with Trump rather than sitting back and absorbing the blows.

Last month, Trump claimed that “drugs are still pouring into our country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels”. He also claimed that a “large percentage” of these deadly substances were made in China.

China has accused the White House of “blackmail” over its tariff hike, saying it has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug policies. “The US is shifting blame and doubling down on its mistakes by once again imposing tariffs on Chinese exports to the US under the pretext of the fentanyl issue,” it said.

On Tuesday, stock markets slumped and bond yields slid in Asia as investors braced for an imminent escalation in a global trade war with the new American tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico.

Trump said 25 per cent tariffs on Canada and Mexico would go into effect on Tuesday, prompting Canada to vow retaliation. Both the Canadian dollar and Mexican peso tumbled, although China’s yuan bounced off its lowest level since 13 February in offshore trading.

Asian equities tracked the biggest losses on Wall Street this year from overnight, with the S&P 500 sliding 1.8 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropping 2.6 per cent.

Crude oil wallowed near 12-week lows and bitcoin languished around $86,000 after erasing the surge to the cusp of $95,000 that started the week.

Tech stocks suffered particular selling pressure, pushing Japan’s Nikkei down 2.2 per cent and Taiwan’s benchmark index down 1.3 per cent.

“It’s a very powerful weapon that politicians haven’t used because they were either dishonest, stupid or paid off in some other form,” Trump said Monday at the White House. “And now we’re using them.”

Taliban arrest Afghan activist who campaigned for education of girls

Taliban officials have arrested an Afghan educator who has been campaigning for the education rights of girls in the country, his family members have confirmed.

Wazir Khan, 25, was arrested from his residence in the Kabul area on 24 February, his family has said. The arrest was carried out by four of the Taliban’s local officials who took him to their intelligence facility General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI).

He was picked up from his house in Butkhak in Kabul, taken out by the Taliban officials who tied his hands and blindfolded his eyes, his brother Amir Khan Zaland told The Independent.

“We have no idea where he is right now and how he is. It has been more than seven days since he was picked up,” he said.

“Wazir Khan worked for human rights, was an activist for children’s education, why was he arrested? What sin did he commit? Instead of being praised, he is being imprisoned in Afghanistan,” his brother told The Independent.

“As of Monday, more than a week after his arrest, we have no idea about Mr Khan’s whereabouts and his safety. It is believed he is in the Taliban’s detention facility,” said Samantha Leaning, a human rights advocate working closely with Mr Khan for nearly two years.

Mr Khan was running Today Child, a non-profit organisation for raising awareness of education for girls since 2022, which he said was his tool for supporting education in the rural areas of Afghanistan and wiping out illiteracy in the country.

“The Taliban has a red line with activism on girls education inside Afghanistan but Mr Khan was campaigning for both – girls and boys education – and that too for the age under 12 years, which the Taliban allows under its Sharia law,” Ms Leaning told The Independent, stating that he was “worried about his security”, in a likely sign he was already under threat from the Taliban.

She added that the young Afghan educator has been using the “let Afghan girls learn” hashtag in his social media which probably “tipped it” with the Taliban.

Several social media photos and videos of Mr Khan show him reaching the hinterlands of Afghanistan where he campaigned among the rural elders and tribal leaders to continue educating their children.

Mr Khan is also seen distributing storybooks and notebooks and narrating stories to groups of Afghan children during his regular outreach activities.

The Taliban have not released any official statement confirming the arrest of Mr Khan.

However, this is not the first such arrest of Afghan educators campaigning inside the hardline Islamist regime for education of girls and women.

The Taliban has banned the education of girls and women above sixth grade for more than three years now inside the country, leading to a widespread shutdown of education for millions of girls and women.

In March 2023, the Taliban arrested a prominent Afghan educator Matiullah Wesa from Kabul after he spent months travelling to remote parts of the country with his mobile library.

He was severely assaulted and tortured in his prison detention at the GDI facility and was released only after 215 days in prison.

Mr Wesa was seen as outspoken in his demands for girls to have the right to go to school and repeatedly called on the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan to reverse its bans on female education.

After his release from the detention, Mr Wesa has maintained a low profile in public and abstained from actively campaigning for Afghan girls’ right to education.

James Harrison, whose rare blood helped save millions of babies, dies

James Harrison, who helped save more than two million babies by donating blood over 1,100 times across six decades, has died at 88.

According to the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, Harrison, also known as the “man with the golden arm”, had the “precious antibody in his blood” that was used to make a “lifesaving medication called Anti-D, given to mothers whose blood is at risk of attacking their unborn babies”.

Harrison died in his sleep at Peninsula Village Nursing Home on the NSW Central Coast on 17 February.

He began donating in 1954 at 18 and continued regularly until his retirement in 2018 at 81. According to Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, he has helped save the lives of more than 2.4 million Australian babies.

Harrison’s daughter, Tracey Mellowship, fondly remembered him as a generous soul with a wonderful sense of humour.

“James was a humanitarian at heart, but also very funny,” Ms Mellowship said.

“In his last years, he was immensely proud to become a great grandfather to two beautiful grandchildren, Trey and Addison.

“As an Anti-D recipient myself, he has left behind a family that may not have existed without his precious donations.”

She added: “He was also very proud to have saved so many lives, without any cost or pain. It made him happy to hear about the many families like ours, who existed because of his kindness.

“He always said it does not hurt, and the life you save could be your own.”

Harrison’s rare antibodies were crucial in developing Anti-D, the treatment that has protected millions of newborns from Rhesus disease (or Haemolytic Disease of the Foetus and Newborn) – a condition in which a pregnant woman’s blood attacks her unborn baby’s red blood cells, potentially leading to brain damage or even death.

It occurs when a mother has RhD-negative blood, while her baby inherits RhD-positive blood from the father. If the mother has been sensitised to RhD-positive blood – often during a previous pregnancy – her immune system may produce antibodies that attack the baby’s blood as a foreign threat.

“James was a pioneer of our Anti-D programme. More than 3 million doses of Anti-D containing James’ blood have been issued to Aussie mothers with a negative blood type since 1967,” Lifeblood said in a statement on their website.

“He has changed my world and I’m sure he’s done that for many other families, making him a very incredible human,” said Rebecca Ind, a recipient of Harrison’s blood donations during and after her pregnancy 12 years ago.

In 1999 Harrison was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia – one of the country’s most prestigious honours – for his extraordinary dedication to the Lifeblood and Anti-D programme. His kindness leaves a “remarkable legacy, and he has put the challenge out to the Australian community to beat it”, Lifeblood said in the statement.

“I hope it’s a record that somebody breaks, because it will mean they are dedicated to the cause,” Harrison said of his last donation at the age of 81.

“It becomes quite humbling when they say, ‘oh you’ve done this or you’ve done that or you’re a hero,’” Harrison said at the time. “It’s something I can do. It’s one of my talents, probably my only talent, is that I can be a blood donor.”

At 14, Harrison underwent major chest surgery and relied on the generosity of blood donors to survive. Determined to give back, he vowed to donate as soon as he was eligible – and at 18, he kept his promise, despite a fear of needles.

More than a decade later, doctors discovered that his blood contained a rare antibody essential for producing Anti-D injections. Committed to helping others, Harrison willingly switched to plasma donation, ensuring his contributions could save as many lives as possible.

“James was a remarkable, stoically kind, and generous person who was committed to a lifetime of giving and he captured the hearts of many people around the world,” Lifeblood chief executive officer Stephen Cornelissen was quoted as saying by Australia’s Nine News.

“It was James’ belief that his donations were no more important than any other donors’, and that everyone can be special in the same way that he was.

“James extended his arm to help others and babies he would never know a remarkable 1173 times and expected nothing in return.”

Robyn Barlow, coordinator of Australia’s Rh Program – designed to prevent Haemolytic Disease of the Foetus and Newborn (HDFN) – said she had been friends with Harrison for nearly 60 years after first recruiting him as a donor.

“He made my job very easy because he was so keen to donate all the time,” Barlow told 7NEWS.com.au.

“I never had to worry about him – I never had to call and say: ‘when you’re coming’, nothing like that, he was there standing in front of me.”

In an interview with NPR in 2015, Harrison said: “I was always looking forward to donating, right from the operation, because I don’t know how many people it took to save my life.”

Several reports pointed out that doctors were not entirely sure why and how Harrison developed this rare blood antibody, though they suspect it may be linked to the transfusions he received at 14 after his surgery.

“Every batch of Anti-D that has ever been made in Australia has come from James’ blood,” Jemma Falkenmire, of the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood (then known as Australian Red Cross Blood Service), told CNN in 2015. “And more than 17 per cent of women in Australia are at risk, so James has helped save a lot of lives.”

Fewer than 200 people in Australia donate Anti-D, yet their contributions help an estimated 45,000 mothers and babies each year, according to the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood.

Scientists from WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) in Melbourne, in collaboration with Lifeblood, are working on a project called “James in a Jar” to grow the Anti-D antibody in the lab. Using blood and immune cells from Harrison and other donors, the team has successfully recreated and cultivated the antibody, according to Lifeblood.

This breakthrough could one day help prevent Haemolytic Disease of the Foetus and Newborn, benefiting pregnant women not just in Australia but worldwide, the statement said.

Why this Oscar-nominated Japanese film may never air in own country

Shiori Ito’s Black Box Diaries may have lost to No Other Land at the Oscars, but both the filmmaker and her film have long been making waves in Japan.

Black Box Diaries, nominated for best documentary feature at the 97th Academy Awards, follows Ito’s investigation into the sexual violence she suffered herself.

The story begins in 2015 when she meets the Washington DC bureau chief of the Tokyo Broadcasting System, Noriyuki Yamaguchi, to discuss a potential job. She is 25 at the time and an intern at Thomson Reuters.

In the film, Ito remembers meeting Yamaguchi for dinner, losing consciousness during the meal and waking up to Yamaguchi allegedly raping her in his hotel.

Ito says she reported the alleged crime, but police sought to discourage her from filing a report, even making her go through a harrowing recreation of the assault.

“I had to lay down on the floor, there were three or four male investigators with cameras, and they placed this lifelike doll on me and moved it and took photos,” she says.

An arrest warrant was issued in Ito’s case but Yamaguchi, who was allegedly close to then prime minister Shinzo Abe and had written a biography of him, was never arrested and the criminal case was quickly dropped with no explanation.

Ito went public with her allegation in May 2017, but faced backlash in a country where talking about sexual violence is still a taboo. Ito received the kind of criticism that nearly all sexual assault survivors face, including questions about what she was wearing.

She was accused of wearing an outfit that was too revealing because she had left a button undone on a blue, collared blouse that she wore to the meeting instead of the traditional black suit one usually wore to interviews.

In 2019, Ito won a civil trial in Tokyo where judges ruled that Yamaguchi “had sexual intercourse without consent with Ms Ito, who was in a state of intoxication and unconscious”. Ito won damages worth ¥3.3m (£17,387) and immediately became the face of the #MeToo movement in Japan.

Yamaguchi, then 53, denied the accusations and filed a countersuit, claiming the incident was consensual and that Ito’s accusations had ruined his reputation. His suit, seeking ¥130m (£685,360) in damages, was dismissed.

“Honestly, I still don’t know how I feel. However, winning this case doesn’t mean this didn’t happen,” Ito told reporters outside the court in 2019. “This is not the end.”

Ito wrote a memoir about her experience, Black Box, which formed the basis for her directorial debut.

“It took me four years because emotionally I was struggling,” she told the BBC about making the film.

Black Box Diaries premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and went on to be screened at over 50 film festivals, winning multiple awards along the way and garnering a best documentary nomination at the Oscars, a first in that category by a Japanese director.

In her native country, where a 2017 government survey reported nearly one in 13 (7.8 per cent) women saying they had been raped, Ito’s film might never find an audience.

“We have been struggling to bring the film to Japan, and we hoped the nomination can get us through,” Ito told Deadline earlier in February.

Ito has drawn condemnation from her former lawyers for using what they call unauthorised footage. Ito, however, claims that using it was essential to tell the story of how her case was covered up, even while apologising to those whose “consent for the use of footage was overlooked”.

Her lawyers have said using security footage from the hotel where the incident took place as well as images and audio recordings from a taxi driver and investigators in the case were all meant to be used in court alone and violated the privacy of the people concerned.

Ito responded that she would re-edit the film to ensure “appropriate processing to prevent individuals from being identified” in the aforementioned footage and audio.

The presence of this footage has become a sticking point in getting her film released in the country, though conservative attitudes towards sex and sexual violence have a role to play.

The contentious hotel footage from the night in question, which Ito has said was incredibly hard for her to obtain, allegedly shows Yamaguchi pulling out an inebriated and visibly struggling Ito from a taxi and helping her into the hotel.

“People in general and theatres in this case are more risk averse in Japan than, for example, the States. And they feel more vulnerable to legal claims and trouble,” Black Box Diaries producer Eric Nyari says.

Ito simply maintains: “Distributors, they know it’s no legal issue, so they’re more scared about the public voice.”

Black Box Diaries may never be screened in Japan, but Ito’s case has already led to changes within the country.

In 2023, Japan passed landmark laws that raised the age of sexual consent from 13 to 16 and redefined the definition of rape from “forcible sexual intercourse” to “nonconsensual sexual intercourse” and extended protection to victims under the influence of alcohol or drugs or those coerced by an individual in a position of authority.

Ito describes the film as her “love letter to Japan” and hopes that it has some impact.

“I want to encourage other survivors to tell their story in their own language, because it’s very empowering,” she told the Global Investigative Journalism Network. “Own your story and be the one to tell your own story.”

Politician’s ‘body-shaming’ post about cricket captain sparks row

A political worker in India has come under fire after she was accused of body-shaming Indian cricket captain Rohit Sharma and calling him “the most unimpressive” skipper of the country.

Opposition political party Congress’s national spokesperson Shama Mohamed made the off-colour remark about Sharma’s fitness as team India played against New Zealand in Dubai for the ICC Champions Trophy on Sunday.

India beat New Zealand to enter the semi-finals of the championship. However, skipper Sharma fell to Kyle Jamieson at just 15 runs off 17 balls.

In a now-deleted post on X, Ms Mohamed said: “Rohit Sharma is fat for a sportsman! Need to lose weight! And of course the most unimpressive Captain India has ever had!”

Her comments have sparked outrage from both cricketing and political commentators of the country.

While her Congress party distanced itself from the remarks, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and others have attacked the opposition for the comment that came in the midst of an international tournament.

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Devajit Saikia condemned the remarks as “unfortunate”, saying Sharma is absolutely fit and fine.

“Very unfortunate for a responsible person to pass such a trivial comment when the team is in the middle of such a crucial ICC tournament,” he told NDTV.

“It may have demoralising effect on an individual or the team. All the players are performing to their highest potential and results are visible. I hope individuals will desist from making such derogatory statements for personal publicity sake,” Mr Saikia said.

BJP’s national spokesperson, Pradeep Bhandari, said it was “extremely unfortunate” that the Congress party is now going after the captain of the Indian cricket team who has won us one of the world cups.

“This also tells you that the Congress party has stooped to an extremely low level and now they are trying to send the message that they are the sole arbitrator of judging any sportsperson or a professional. A true democratic party can’t do so,” he added.

Another BJP spokesperson, Shehzad Poonawalla, took a dig at Congress for losing elections under politician Rahul Gandhi.

“Those who have lost 90 elections under captaincy of Rahul Gandhi are calling captaincy of Rohit Sharma unimpressive!” he said.

Pawan Khera, chair of the party’s publicity department, said Ms Mohamed has been asked to delete the concerned social media post from X and has been advised to “advised to exercise greater caution in the future”.

He said her comments “about a cricketing legend that do not reflect the party’s position”.

“The Indian National Congress holds the contributions of sporting icons in the highest regard and does not endorse any statements that undermine their legacy,” Mr Khera added responding to BJP criticism of questioning Congress’ patriotism.

However, when questioned by media on Monday, Ms Mohamed defended her comments and said it was a “generic tweet” about a sportsperson’s fitness.

“It was not body-shaming. I always believed a sportsperson should be fit, and I felt he was a bit overweight, so I just tweeted about that. I have been attacked for no reason. When I compared him with previous captains, I put in a statement. I have the right. What is wrong in saying? It is a democracy…” she told ANI.

Priyanka Chaturvedi, a lawmaker representing Maharashtra from the Shiv Sena party, also came out in support of Sharma and said “with extra pounds of weight or without it”, he has led India team to great heights.