New Delhi: Mohammed Zubair, the Alt News co-founder is facing the heat over his 2018 tweet hurting religious sentiments of other community. There are many instances, as shared by the Twitter handle @thehawkeyex, where the fact-checker shared insulting photos & comments about the god & goddesses of other faith.
Its easy to make fun of other’s god, religion, culture & scriptures, because there is no consequences.
Ironically its coming from same person who triggered an event that took entire nation on ransom, and the violent mayhem is still on..
Ever tried this for own …??? pic.twitter.com/dV7dDWTSAR
— The Hawk Eye (@thehawkeyex) June 13, 2022
Zubair’s arrest has elicited many reactions from politicians & left lobby in particular, as they called it a brazen assault on those exposing hatemongers & fake news makers. The other side is clearly not convinced and believe that his posts were malicious and with an intention to malign government.
Though jury is out on this, a leading portal OpIndia has shared at least 20 instances where the fact-checker peddled fake news. This came on back of Shiv Sena spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi challenging a Twitter user to name one instance when he shared a fake news.
Months ago, a video from Ghaziabad’s Loni circulated in which an elderly named Abdul Samad was beaten by a mob. Zubair apparently edited this video and claimed that he was forced to chant Jai Shri Ram. In the police probe, it was found that accused were Arif, Adil & Mushahid and there was no communal angle.
In 2020, Zubair shared a tweeted saying that a group of people were planning to attack Tanishq’s showroom while chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’. Nothing of this sort was found by police. The issue was that some people were protesting over controversial Tanishq ad and no violence happened.
After Hathras rape incident, Rahul and Priyanka were travelling to the city and were seen laughing on the way. But, Zubair did a wrong fack-check and used a 2019 photo to show that the duo were not laughing.
In 2020 Delhi riots, the cops were attacked with stones in the Jamia campus but his portal AltNews claimed that the students didn’t have stones and rather had wallets. Zubair promoted it this on social media but when truth came out, his fake claims got busted.
During farmers protests in Delhi-NCR, he shared an image, claiming that farmers were being treated like terrorists. Later, it was found that the image was actually from a 2013 stir when UPA was in power. The photo was first posted by Kavita Krishnan.
Dwarka, Delhi | Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair who has been sent to 1-day police remand brought to IFSO Special Cell, Delhi Police
He has been arrested over allegations of hurting the religious sentiments of a community pic.twitter.com/Zi0ZHWdjdD
— ANI (@ANI) June 27, 2022
These are just a few incidents, as investigated by the leading portal, when the fact-checker himself got it wrong or got driven by an agenda. The website claims that Zubair peddles fake news and actively supports a certain propaganda but the liberals conveniently choose to gloss over them.