New Delhi: Alt News co-founder and fact-checker Mohammed Zubair, who had highlighted BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s controversial remark against Prophet Muhammad, has deactivated his Facebook account after some old posts invited backlash.
The posts include one about last year’s meeting between PM Narendra Modi and the Pope. Retweeting a news report about the meeting, Zubair posted a photo — said to have been posted by another Twitter user — that seeks to compare the Vatican City to a Shivling. In an accompanying message, Zubair wrote that the “poster inspired me to come up with a parody Facebook page”.
Another aims a potshot at TV actor Arun Govil, who played Ram on the Ramayan series. A screenshot of the post shows Zubair saying that “Sri Ram (arun govil) be made the Chairman|Director of ISRO or the DEAN of IISER” because “who knows better about rocketry (vimanas) than him”.
Zubair’s Facebook account began showing the “deactivated” message on 13 June, the same day a Twitter user who goes by the moniker ‘The Hawk Eye’ posted a screenshot of the aforementioned posts, along with others, on Twitter.
In the tweet, which has received nearly 8,300 likes and 4,600 retweets, the user said it was “easy to make fun of other’s god, religion, culture & scriptures, because there is no consequences”.
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
Reached for comment, Zubair refused to give a statement on the row surrounding him, saying a case against him was sub judice. “My lawyer has advised me not to comment and, therefore, I am refraining from commenting,” he told ThePrint.
Alt News co-founder Pratik Sinha, meanwhile, argued that his colleague’s old posts were being taken “out of context” and were being “misconstrued”.
On Tuesday, the Allahabad High Court refused to quash an FIR lodged against Zubair on 1 June in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur district. The FIR came after he dubbed the controversial sadhu Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati and two others “hate-mongers” on Twitter.
Well done @vineetjaintimes! Why do we need Hate Mongers like Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati or Mahant Bajrang Muni or Anand Swaroop to arrange a Dharam Sansad to speak against a community and a Religion when we already have Anchors who can do much better job from News Studios.
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) May 27, 2022
Dismissing Zubair’s plea to quash the FIR, the Lucknow vacation bench of the high court said the “perusal of the record makes out, prima facie, offences against the petitioner at this stage and there appears to be a sufficient ground for investigation in the case”.
“The evidence has to be gathered after a thorough investigation and placed before the court on the basis of which alone the court concerned can come to a conclusion one way or the other on the allegations levelled by the petitioner,” it observed. “If the allegations are bereft of truth and made maliciously, the investigation will say so.”
Also Read: Why Netherlands’ leading critic of Islam, Geert Wilders, is speaking out for Nupur Sharma
‘Zubair’s statements misconstrued’
Sinha strongly came out in defence of his colleague Zubair, saying that the action against him reflected the state of affairs in India.
“His statements have been misconstrued as incidents from the past were resurrected which are contextually different and have no relation to any controversy today. All of this is done in order to target Alt News and, in specific, Zubair,” he told ThePrint.
He contended that these comments would not have invited an FIR in the past. “There were older posts by Zubair on Facebook where he spoke about people who made ridiculous claims like how the internet existed in the days of Mahabharata.
“It was all satire and, at no other time in India, there would have been an FIR. Since this is the current state of our country, there is a backlash of this nature. Since people have the right to resort to any measure to ensure the situation is under control, Zubair too has the right to deactivate his account,” Sinha added.