Altnews Founder Who Triggered 'Blasphemy' Propaganda Against Former BJP Spokesperson, In Soup For Anti-Hindu Tweets

Controversial Twitter user and co-founder of a fact-checking portal named Altnews, Mohammed Zubair, was arrested on Monday (27 June) by Delhi police on charges of promoting enmity on religious grounds and deliberately hurting religious sentiments through a tweet.

The case against Zubair

The tweet for which Zubair has been arrested was made in 2018. It showed a picture of signboard of a hotel, with a caption that said, “Before 2014: Honeymoon Hotel. After 2014: Hanuman Hotel”.

The screenshot was taken from a 1983 Bollywood film titled Kissi Se Na Kehna featuring Farooq Shaikh and Deepti Naval. The scene shows a newly married couple finding out that the hotel they were told is named Honeymoon Hotel, is actually named Hanuman Hotel.

The arrest came after several Twitter users tagged Delhi police in Zubair’s post, asking for his arrest for “hurting Hindu religious sentiments”. A complaint was formally registered in Delhi.

The Times of India reported today that after his arrest, Zubair was produced before a court where police sought remand for custodial interrogation. However, the court allowed the police one-day custody of Zubair. The report says Zubair was booked under IPC sections 295A and 153A.

The report quotes an unidentified police officer as saying that investigators are also probing “dubious financial transaction” involving him.

His role in death threats against a woman

Readers may be reminded that it was Zubair who posted a cropped video from a television debate that showed former Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Nupur Sharma commenting on the marriage of Islam’s founder.

Zubair had accompanied the clip, posted in May, with a caption that called Sharma a “rabid communal hatemonger” and accused her of speaking “ill about other religions” which “can incite riots”.

The larger video, however, showed that Sharma was reacting to insults and jokes directed at Shivalinga, a symbol of reverence for Hindus.

Zubair’s tweet led to a spate of death and beheading threats made to Sharma. Massive rallies were taken out in May and June demanding death and beheading for Sharma. An effigy of Sharma was hung at a street in Karnataka.

It is well known that “blasphemy” of Islam’s founder is an emotive issue among many Muslims and vigilante punishment to “blasphemers” is quite common. Perhaps the most infamous case is the massacre at French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo’s office by Islamists after they published cartoons of Islam’s founder.

Other police cases against Zubair

It is not the first time that Zubair has been booked by police for a criminal offence. However, it is the first time that he has been arrested.

In June this year, Zubair was booked by Khairabad police in Uttar Pradesh for calling some Hindu seers “hate mongers”. The complaint was lodged by Bhagwan Sharan, district president of an organisation called Hindu Sher Sena. Zubair was booked under sections 295(A) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Last year in June, the Ghaziabad police in Uttar Pradesh filed a police case against Zubair under sections 153 (provocation with intent to cause riot), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 505 (publishing or circulating any statement, rumour or report with intent to incite), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC.

This came after Zubair posted a video of a Muslim man being beaten up while keeping the audio muted. Zubair had posted the video with the claim that it was a communal hate crime.

Zubair later deleted the video, accepting publicly that his version was incorrect.

The same month, Zubair was again booked by UP police under sections 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) and 192 (fabricating false evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The FIR came after a Muzaffarnagar resident gave a complaint against him, alleging that Zubair abused him over the phone and threatened to murder him.

In August 2020, he came under scanner of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), commonly called the national child commission, for “online harassment” of a minor girl.

On 7 August, Zubair had indulged in an online spat with a Twitter user, after which he posted the display picture of the user that showed him with a girl child, possibly his granddaughter.

Zubair blurred the picture of the girl and wrote, “Hello Jagdish Singh, Does your cute grand daughter know about your part time job of abusing people on social media?”. Zubair’s tweet led to a barrage of abuses hurled at the child. The commission took exception to the tweet and wrote to Delhi police to file a case under POCSO against Zubair.

Zubair had recently deleted several tweets about Hindu deities

Days after triggering death threats against Nupur Sharma for “blasphemy” of Islam’s founder, Zubair found himself under scanner from Twitter users who dug out his old tweets cracking jokes on Hindu deities. As the tweets went viral, Zubair deleted several of his tweets. He also deactivated his Facebook account. This eventually led to the latest FIR against him and the subsequent arrest.

For instance, in an old tweet, Zubair poked fun at Hindu beliefs and mocked Sanskrit, the language in which ancient Hindu texts including Vedas are written. “Ancient Laptops had no processors & RAM. It was later copied by Missionary Mathematician Charles Babbage. Sanskrit learning was essential for Computer literacy those days. Only Virat Hindus could operate computer as lower castes were never allowed to learn Sanskrit,” the tweet said.

A history of targeting journalists and other individuals

Swarajya has earlier reported how Zubair misused his Twitter reach to show a Dalit woman and her minor son as liars, thereby trying to sabotage their case against a neighbouring family. The Dalit family had accused the neighbouring family, who were Muslims, of harassing them in order to make them leave the village. Swarajya had reported the family’s complaint and posted videos of the family’s statements.

Later, a probe by higher officials found that some local cops had tried to downplay allegations by the Dalit family in order to shield the accused. Despite being pointed out, Zubair neither apologised nor deleted his tweets against the family.