The Ministry of External Affairs on Saturday said that it was not involved in the press conference held by Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Delhi on Friday in which women reporters were not invited, ANI reported.

“MEA had no involvement in the press interaction held yesterday by the Afghan FM in Delhi,” the news agency quoted the ministry as having said in a statement.

Several journalists on Friday said that women reporters were not invited to the press conference and added that this decision was “unacceptable”.

Muttaqi had met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday morning and held the press conference at the Afghan embassy in the evening to share details about his trip to India – the highest bilateral contact between New Delhi and the Taliban since 2021.

Images shared by Hafiz Zia Ahmad, the director of public communication for Afghanistan’s foreign ministry, on social media also showed no women reporters present during the press conference.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan has been accused of severe human rights abuses, especially against women and minorities.

In September 2021, the insurgent group banned education for girls above class six, claiming that it did not comply with its interpretation of the Sharia, or Islamic law. This came a month after the group retook control of Afghanistan.

It has also barred women from several jobs and most public spaces.

On Saturday, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clarify his position on women journalists not being invited for the press conference.

“If your recognition of women’s rights isn’t just convenient posturing from one election to the other, then how has this insult to some of India’s most competent women been allowed in our country, a country whose women are its backbone and its pride,” Vadra said on social media.

On Friday, independent journalist Smita Sharma said on social media that no woman reporters were invited to Muttaqi’s press conference, adding that Jaishankar too did not refer to “the horrible plight of Afghan girls and women under Taliban regime”.

“Muttaqi getting the red carpet welcome in a country where we take pride in women achievers and leaders because of our security concerns,” she added. “World politics today.”

Suhasini Haidar, the diplomatic affairs editor at The Hindu, said that Muttaqi was allowed to “bring their abhorrent and illegal discrimination against women to India, as the government hosts the Taliban delegation with full official protocol”.

“This isn’t pragmatism, this is supplication,” she added on social media.

In December, the Taliban government announced that it would shut down the operations of national and foreign non-governmental organisations in the country employing women. This came two years after it ordered such organisations to suspend the employment of Afghan women, claiming that women were wearing hijabs, or headscarves usually worn by Muslim women, improperly.

New Delhi has not officially recognised the Taliban government in Afghanistan. However, it has allowed the Taliban to appoint a consul general in Mumbai.

India closed its embassy in Kabul after the insurgent group retook power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as the United States forces left the country following a 20-year conflict.

However, in June 2022, India deployed a technical team at its diplomatic mission in Kabul for humanitarian assistance. On Friday, Jaishankar announced that the technical mission will now be upgraded, effectively reopening the embassy.

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