Indian Muslim Journalist Arrested On Religious Sentiment Charges

New Delhi, MINA – Police in the Indian capital, New Delhi, arrested Muslim journalist Mohammed Zubair on charges of religious sentiment in a tweet he posted in 2018.

Zubair, co-founder of the fact-checking website Alt News, was arrested Monday evening (June 27), and held for a day by police, officials said. Al Jazeera reports.

He was arrested following a complaint by the Twitter account @balajikijaiin this month, in which the person concerned accused the 39-year-old Muslim journalist of insulting Hindus by commenting on the renaming of a hotel after the Hindu monkey god Hanoman.

His arrest came five days after Twitter received a request from the government claiming his account violated Indian law.

Another Alt News co-founder, Pratik Sinha, said on Twitter no notification had been given to Zubair prior to his arrest.

“He is currently being held in a police bus in Burari for more than an hour,” Sinha said.

Sinha wrote, “After a medical examination, Zubair was taken to an undisclosed location. Neither Zubair’s lawyer nor I was told where. We were in the police car with him. None of the police wear name tags.”

Zubair is a telecommunications engineer from the IT hub south of Bengaluru, and Sinha a software engineer from Ahmedabad, founded Alt News in 2017.

Since then, the website has exposed numerous fake news stories, mostly driven by right-wing Hindu portals, and claims made by members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or their supporters.

Delhi Police spokesman Suman Nalwa confirmed Zubair’s arrest and said it violates Section 153 (provoking provocation with intent to cause riots) and Section 295A (willful and malicious act intended to anger religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)