“They cannot file a complaint against me for writing a story because we have facts with us in our stories,” Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of fact-check website Alt News, said in an interview in October 2021. “They cannot attack us on the story that we’ve written, so they are looking to attack me for any other unrelated tweet.” A Twitter sensation with over half-a-million followers, Mr. Zubair was both loved and loathed on the social networks. While many applaud the efforts by Alt News, the website he co-founded with Pratik Sinha, to debunk disinformation and misinformation campaigns, his critics, mainly those in the right-wing online ecosystem, have repeatedly targeted him.
On June 27, the 39-year-old journalist was arrested by the Delhi Police, based on a complaint from an anonymous Twitter handle that alleged that Mr. Zubair hurt religious sentiments over a tweet he sent out four years ago and that he should be prosecuted for the same. The tweet was of an image from a 40-year-old film. The FIR lodged by the Delhi Police, which works under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), initially invoked Sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 295-A (malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code. Subsequently, on July 2, additional charges, including criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence, along with Section 35 of the FCRA, or the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, were applied.
