Pak General Expresses Solidarity to Deepika Padukone for JNU Visit, Then Deletes Tweet

Pakistan Army spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor expressed support to actress Deepika Padukone after she went to the Jawaharlal Nehru University where students were protesting against the attack on them by masked goons to show her solidarity.

Ghafoor, however, deleted the tweet shortly after posting it and also misspelled Deepika's surname, writing '#DeepikaPadukon'. In the now-deleted tweet, Ghafoor had hailed Deepika for "standing both with youth and the truth".

"You have proved to be a brave person in difficult environment in earning respect. Humanity is above everything #DeepikaPadukon," he had written.

Later, a Pakistan-based journalist, Naila Inayat, took a jibe at Ghafoor for deleting his tweet. "Kudos Deepika, let me delete and surrender..," Inayat said and tagged a screenshot of Ghafoor's tweet.

Padukone, who had largely stayed away from political issues till now, had in a bold gesture attended the protest meeting called by JNUSU, who were attacked on Sunday evening allegedly by masked goons of the ABVP, the youth wing of the RSS.

The actor’s move quickly led to calls to boycott her upcoming release Chhapaak from the right-wing ecosystem. This was countered by tweets and statements in Padukone’s support.

No sooner than Ghafoor deleted his tweet, which was made from his personal account, social media users were left puzzled.

"Forgot to switch off the account," a user said by using the laughing smileys. "Probably for grammar check," another user wrote mocking Ghafoor for getting Padukone's surname wrong.

The Pakistan military spokesperson has previously too tried to weigh in on contentious issues in India. Just two days ago, he had tweeted the story of a woman raising the Free Kashmir banner during the protest in Mumbai against the violence in JNU.

Although the woman later clarified that the banner was due to the lockdown in the state since the last five months, Ghafoor tried to portray it as a call for separatism and tweeted it with the hashtag ‘Kashmir is Pakistan’.