The newly appointed Vice Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit has distanced herself from a controversial Twitter account in her name a day after her appointment. In a response on Tuesday to The Hindu’s query about whether the unverified handle @SantishreeD belonged to her, she said “Not mine”.
After Dr. Pandit’s appointment was announced on Monday, the account, which used her full name and description as a professor, caused widespread outrage on Twitter. Screenshots of tweets using communal language and name-calling students, farmers, politicians and activists went viral on social media. The account grew from 500 to about 5000 followers over the course of the day, but was deleted by evening.
