Opposition Slams Centre On Fact-Checking Site’s Founder Mohammed Zubair’s Arrest

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New Delhi: Mohammed Zubair ,one of the founders of fact-checking website Alt News, was arrested by the Delhi Police for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets. Several political leaders have criticised the BJP-led Central government over his arrest.

The Delhi Police reports to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra slammed the Delhi Police for “bending over backwards to please sahibs”. She said Muhammad Zubair was arrested “on a trumped up case” even as “Ms Fringe Sharma enjoys life of protection”.

“Arresting one voice of truth will only give rise to a thousand more,” wrote Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Twitter.

Srinivas BV, Youth Congress President, wrote “Nupur Sharma remains untouched while @zoo_bear gets arrested for calling out the wrongdoings. We strongly condemn this act.”

The case is based on a complaint made by Twitter handle ‘@balajikijaiin’ this month, alleging that Mr Zubair had tweeted a “questionable” image to “deliberately insult the god of a particular religion”, police said. Mr Zubair had sent out that tweet in March 2018.

“It is much easier to cry foul when someone not from your own party is allegedly hurting religious sentiments.Arrest @NupurSharmaBJP, and show the country that the same rules apply to all,” read a tweet by the official Twitter handle of the Trinamool.

“What an irony that the person who made hate speech is roaming free while the journalist who uncovered it is detained,” wrote Kerala MLA MK Muneer.

Alt News co-founder Pratik Sinha said Mr Zubair was called to Delhi for questioning in a different case from 2020, in which the court has given him protection against arrest. But he was arrested in this new case instead, without mandatory notice, Mr Sinha said. “No FIR copy is being given to us despite repeated requests.”

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