This is not the first time Alt News and its co-founder Mohammed Zubair has been caught spreading fake news, lies, and half-truths.
New Delhi: Alt News and its co-founder Mohammed Zubair did on Friday (January 28) what they have done an infinite number of times in the past: spread fake news.
After Friday prayers, Mohammed Zubair posted a fake news on Twitter to defend former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party.
Zubair posted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) criticised Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP) for using old name of Prayagraj and the BJP itself used the old name of the city when it declared its candidates from Allahabad.
What Zubair did not tell in the tweet that in its official candidate list, the Samajwadi Party had named districts Allahabad and Faizabad whereas the BJP list has the name of the constituency Allahabad West and Allahabad South.
Allahabad, whose name is now changed to Prayagraj, has 12 assembly constituencies, including Allahabad West, Allahabad North and Allahabad South. Constituency names can be changed only by the Election Commission of India.
In October 2018, the Yogi Adityanath government of Uttar Pradesh had changed the name of Allahabad district to Prayagraj.
“Keeping in view the feelings and emotions of the people, Allahabad has been renamed Prayagraj by our government. Five hundred years ago the name of the place was Prayagraj as it is at the `Triveni Sangam' (a confluence of three rivers)… Those who are opposing this are not aware of their history, culture and traditions and we can't have hopes from them”, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had said.
In November 2018, Faizabad district name was changed to Ayodhya.
Since Shri Yogi Adityanath came to power in Uttar Pradesh in March 2017, he has made multiple such changes to reflect what the great cities were known by before the invasion of the country.
In the first week of January, Mohammed Zubair tried to pass off a conversion video from Bangladesh as an exorcism video. Quoting an India Today fact-check, he tried to set the narrative that the video from Bangladesh was not about conversion but exorcism. The moot question remained why Mohammed Zubair himself did not fact-check the video?
In June last year, one Abdul Samad Saifi was thrashed in Ghaziabad in a personal fight. Zubair circulated a muted video of the incident claiming Saifi was thrashed for not chanting Jai Shri Ram.
Zubair was booked by the UP police in the case.
