The Absurdity in charges raised against Fact-checker Mohammed Zubair

Bizarre, Absurd, Strange are just some of the words you would use to describe the charges raised against Alt-News Co-founder Mohammed Zubair. On June 27, Mohammed Zubair was first arrested after First Information Report (FIR) was registered against him based on a Twitter posting, which another Twitter handle alleged "hurt Hindu sentiments."

The Twitter Handle, which alleged that Zubait hurt religious sentiments was anonymous. So how could the Police file a complaint without verifying details of the complainant? The Tweet which caused Zubair's arrest was posted in March 2018. The tweet by @balajikijaiin addressed to the Delhi Police was posted on June 19. The handle had been created in October 2021 and, until Monday evening, had posted only one message – the one asking the Delhi Police to take action against Zubair. Sounds a bit targeted,right?

In that tweet, Zubair shared an image of a hotel signboard repainted from "Honeymoon Hotel" to "Hanuman Hotel."The image was a screen grab from a 1983 Hindi film, Kissi Se Na Kehna. The Delhi Police FIR states: "These words and the picture found to be used by Mohammed Zubair @zoo_bear against a particular religious community and are highly provocative and more than sufficient to incite feelings of hatred amongst people which can be detrimental for maintenance of public tranquility in the society." If the picture was so offensive why didn't the censor board censor the scene?

 However all of this was just the tip of the iceberg. On July 4,Zubair was produced in a court at Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh in a case registered over a tweet that allegedly referred to 3 religious leaders as "hate mongers". A FIR was registered against Zubair on June 3 at the Khairabad police station, for calling Hindu religious leaders like Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati, Bajrang Muni, and Anand Swaroop "hatemongers" in his tweet dated May 27.

Zubair was booked under Section 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage reli­gious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or reli­gious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code(IPC) and Section 67 of the Information Technology(IT) Act, 2000. The funny thing about this arrest was that all three religious leaders mentioned in his tweet have earlier been booked in hate speech cases in the past few months.All 3 religion leaders were known for making inflammatory statements against Muslims, and most of these have even been taped.

Mahant Bajrang Muni had allegedly threatened to kidnap and rape Muslim women during a rally on April 2. Muni was arrested over the incident but was granted bail on April 24. After being released, he said that he had no regrets, and argued that he had made the statements to protect Hindu women. Swami Anand Swaroop, was one of the key organizers of the Prayagraj Dharam Sansad event, where there were multiple instances of hate speech against Minorities and calls for anti-Muslim violence. A notice was also issued to Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati by the Ghaziabad Police for his statement supporting ex-Bharatiya Janata Party national spokesperson Nupur Sharma.

A look at these senseless charges against Zubair makes one understand that his only crime was he spoke the truth to power. He had exposed the lies of the ruling establishment and was instrumental in making now suspended Bjp Spokesperson Nupur Sharma accountable for her hateful remarks against the Prophet. Zubair is likely to face more baseless charges as long as he keeps doing the journalism that India currently is in dire need of