Of the six cases the Uttar Pradesh Police is investigating against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, five are for his Twitter posts — where he either reported hate crime against Muslims, fact-checked television reports and other false information online, or called out television channels for hosting communal debates. The other FIR is a rioting case from June 10, where neither Mr. Zubair nor his work or social media is mentioned.
Earlier this week, the Uttar Pradesh police formed a Special Investigative Team (SIT) to probe these six cases. Mr. Zubair has already secured interim bail in one of these cases from the Supreme Court and has moved another plea in the top court seeking to quash all the UP cases against him or club them together and transfer them to Delhi.
The most recent of these cases was registered at the Kotwali police station in Hathras on July 4, on the complaint of one Deepak Sharma of the Rashtriya Swabhiman Dal, a Hindu right-wing outfit based in Hathras. Mr. Sharma alleged that the journalist likened Vatican City to the shape of a “shivling” and Lord Krishna to Christ “to make fun of Hindu gods”.
