Explained: The two cases against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair and the reason for his arrest

Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News, was arrested by the cyber unit of Delhi Police Monday for hurting religious sentiments and promoting enmity. He was sent to police custody for a day. Who is Mohammed Zubair? Mohammed Zubair founded Alt News along with former software engineer Pratik Sinha. Zubair and Sinha started the website in 2017 to counter fake news. Why is Zubair arrested? The case against Zubair is based on a tweet that alleged that the journalist had tweeted a “questionable” image to “deliberately insult the god of a particular religion”, police said. The FIR has been lodged by Delhi Police Sub-Inspector Arun Kumar. The policeman has said that he was monitoring social media when he came across a tweet from a handle named “Hanuman Bhakt”, raising objecting to Zubair’s tweet, reports NDTV. The Twitter handle posted a screenshot and wrote, “Linking our God Hanuman ji with honeymoon is a direct insult of Hindus because he is brahmchari. Kindly take action against this guy @delhipolice” while tagging Delhi Police on Twitter. A first information report (FIR) under IPC Section 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 295-A (malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings) was registered against him earlier this month. The tweet in question was sent out by Zubair in March 2018. According to a senior police officer, the tweet reportedly showed an image of a hotel with a hoarding where “Honeymoon hotel” was repainted to “Hanuman hotel”. The tweet that Zubair had shared was a clip from a 1983 film Kissi Se Na Kehna and has now resurfaced on Twitter.

What is the Delhi Police saying? Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit, which comes under the special cell and deals with cases related to cybercrime and cyber forensics. “Delhi Police has registered a case after getting a complaint from a Twitter handle, wherein it was alleged that Mohammed Zubair had tweeted a questionable image with a purpose to deliberately insult the god of a particular religion. Such tweets were getting retweeted and it appeared that there is a brigade of social media entities, who indulge in insult mongering thereby leading to a possible ramification on communal harmony and is overall against the maintenance of public tranquillity,” said KPS Malhotra, Deputy Commissioner of Police, IFSO, according to The Indian Express. The police have called Zubair’s post highly provocative. A Delhi Police statement said that Zubair was “evasive on the questions and neither provided the necessary technical equipment for the purpose of the investigation nor cooperated in the investigation”. The IFSO unit which arrested Zubair also arrested climate change activist Dish Ravi in February 2021 over an alleged “toolkit” tweeted by climate change activist Greta Thunberg on the farmers’ agitation in Delhi. In July last year, it registered a case against an app created on GitHub for using photos of nearly 80 Muslim women without their permission and allegedly “auctioning” them online. Why was Zubair being questioned? According to Pratik Sinha, Zubair’s colleague at Alt News, he was called for questioning in a 2020 case for which he already has protection from the Delhi High Court. However, he was arrested in another case. “…today at around 6.45 pm, we were told he has been arrested in some other FIR for which no notice was given which is mandatory under law for the Sections under which he has been arrested. Nor FIR copy is being given to us despite repeated requests,” Sinha had tweeted last night after Zubair’s arrest.

What is the 2020 case against Zubair? In August 2020, Delhi Police had booked Zubair in the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POSCO) case after a complaint was filed by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). It referred to a tweet shared by Zubair with a photo of a minor girl whose face was blurred during an online altercation with her father. After Twitter refused to take down the post, the NCPCR moved Delhi HC alleging that the tweet was a violation of various laws. The court had, however, restrained the police from taking coercive action against Zubair in connection with that case. It also asked the Delhi Police to file a further status report on the probe carried out so far. How have the reactions to Zubair’s arrest been? Opposition parties – the Congress, Trinamool, Left, Rashtriya Janata Dal and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen – came out in support of Zubair and have slammed the government over the arrest. “Every person exposing BJP’s hate, bigotry and lies is a threat to them. Arresting one voice of truth will only give rise to a thousand more. Truth always triumphs over tyranny. Daro Mat,” senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav wrote on Twitter, “Those who deal in lies don’t like the ones who investigate the truth… those who have nurtured people who spew poison of hate.” Zubair also received support from a section on social media with #IStandWithZubair trending on Twitter. How controversial is Zubair? Zubair remains a big name on social media with a following of 564.1k. However, he often leaves the Twitter world divided and has followers who can go rabid. He has been slammed time and again for putting out tweets that mock Hinduism. In a recent tweet, he has been accused of taking a dig a Lord Hanuman and is said to be a habitual offender who has been branded “Hinduphobic”.

He reportedly deleted his Facebook account after some of his anti-Hindu posts went viral. With inputs from agencies Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .