Founder of controversial news website ‘Alt-News’ which claims to ‘Fact-Check’ and stop misinformation shares ‘fake news’. On March 26, Zubair from his official Twitter account shared a Tweet alleging ‘Bajrang Dal’ volunteers of not allowing local Muslims to offer namaz at home. The video reportedly was from Moradabad city of Uttar Pradesh.
However, the efficient Uttar Pradesh police immediately took cognizance of the matter and restored the condition before it could get worse. As per a press note released by Moradabad Police, the situation was soon taken into control.
The note read, “on March 25, they received a complaint from the Lajpat Nagar area of the city that Hindus living in the area have raised objection to the ‘Tareveeh’ (offering Namaz in groups). After the report, police asked the local Muslims to offer Tareveeh Namaz at predefined places only.”
The Muslims during Ramzan offer Namaz collectively at a pre-defined place, considering the rush at the mosque. This practice is called as ‘Tareveeh’ and has been observed almost every year.
Notably, the local Hindus find it objectionable as the godown where the Tareveeh was organised never observed any such gatherings in the past.
Alt News co-founder Zubair though shared fake information from his account which says, Hindus stopped Muslims from offering Namaz at home. This is absolutely fake information as, Hindus had objections with namaz being offered at the godown.
Considering the demography of a State like Uttar Pradesh, this could have triggered communal clashes. Zubair who claims to be a fack-checking website owner, is considered a credible source and normal civilians would not mind believing in his statements. He also calims to be a Journalist, earlier an engineer, but shared a ‘Fake tweet’.
Earlier in May 2022, one of his tweets trigged such violence in the country that Muslims started giving beheading threats to Hindus. The former spokesperson of Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) Nupur Sharma during a debate made comments on the founder of Islam. She was responding to people on the pannel who made derogatory comments on the ‘Gyanvapi’ matter.
After this debate, Zubair shared her clip and which she claimed was ‘heavily edited and selected video’. Time Now however delated the video from their YouTube channel but by then Zubair’s clip spread like a wildfire on the internet.
People started accusing Sharma of Blasphemy and demanded beheading. She was forced to step down from the BJP spokesperson’s post. For days and months to come, she received rape and death threats.
Not only this as many lost their lives who supported Nupur Sharma. As many as three people lost their lives including Kanhaiya Lal, Ayush Jadam, Mukesh Tiwari and others, several others were attacked in this row.
Soon after this incident, Zubair was arrested by the police in a different case relating to Yati Narsinghanand. In Mat 2022, Zubair posed a Tweet thread related to prime-time TV anchors by saying these debates “have become a platform to encourage hate mongers to speak ill about other religions”.
He added that the Indian TV anchors were doing a better job of speaking against a religion than the hatemongers Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati or Mahant Bajrang Muni or Anand Swaroop.
A Police case (FIR) was filed in Khairabad, Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh in early June by a Sitapur leader of a Hindu group. The complainant accused Zubair of “outraging religious feelings” of three seers by labeling them “hatemongers” on Twitter.
In 2018, Zubair shared a tweet on Twitter, with a screenshot from a 1983 Indian comedy film Kissi Se Na Kehna by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The screenshot from the film showed a signboard with the name “Honeymoon Hotel” repainted to “Hanuman Hotel”.
On 19 June 2022, an anonymous Twitter user named “Hanuman Bhakt @balajikijaiin” quoted Zubair’s tweet from four years earlier, and asked Delhi Police to take action against him calling it a “direct insult” to Hindus.
On 27 June, Zubair was arrested by Delhi Police after being accused of “hurting religious sentiments”. The charges under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the IT Act were imposed against him.
These two are not the only case against Zubair, they are many.
He is known to spark controversy with his comments and statements on Twitter.
In November 2022, his website quoted that, Islamic missionary movement Tablighi Jamaat is involved in converting people to Hinduism.
The matter came up when a man identified as Rashid Khan, justified Shraddha’s murder by Aftab, suggesting that in a fit of rage, a man can cut up 36 pieces instead of 35. Alt News published a ‘fact check’ claiming that the man in question is Vikas Kumar, even though he insisted on being referred to as Rashid Khan.
Senior Swarajya journalist Swati Goel Sharma claimed that, “Given my experience with covering Dawah activities, I feel he is a recent convert. I am saying this irrespective of what he said, of which I have little idea. A very likely Tablighi connection”.
Alt News fact-checked the case and while quoting Swati they wrote, “Tabligi Jamaat converts people to Hinduism”.
However, it was later revealed that the man, Vikas Kumar did convert to Islam recently and had a Tabligi Jamaat connection.
Thereafter, Alt News updated the article and added a corrigendum that said: “In an inadvertent error, it was mentioned in the article that a journalist had claimed that Vikas Kumar had recently converted to Hinduism. The article has been updated. The error is sincerely regretted.“
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