The Delhi Police’s Cyber Cell has registered an FIR against fact-check website AltNews co-founder, Mohammed Zubair, for allegedly “threatening and torturing a girl child through Twitter”, officials said on Sunday.
The FIR was registered against Mohd Zubair in Delhi and Raipur under provisions of the Information Technology Act and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) on a complaint received from the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), a senior police officer said.
According to Zubair’s statement, “This is an absolutely frivolous complaint. I will be responding to it legally. Meanwhile, AltNews backed him, saying his work “hurts those who have weaponized misinformation to subvert the Indian democracy”.
The tweet by Zubair said that he received an abusive message from a Twitter user Jagdish Singh. Later Zubair replied with the user’s display picture, which features a little girl who is perhaps his granddaughter, where he blurred her face in the image posted.
“Hello Jagdish Singh,” he said. “Does your cute granddaughter know about your part time job of abusing people on social media? I suggest you to change your profile pic”, read Zubair’s tweet.
After this incident, the Delhi deputy commissioner of police and the nodal cyber cell officer filed FIR against Zubair for “stalking of a minor girl on Twitter.
Pratik Sinha, AltNews co-founder dismissed the allegations and said, “An attempt is being made to hound co-founder of Alt News, Mohammed Zubair, through misuse of legal apparatus.”
“Alt News stands by Mohammed Zubair. Zubair has been at the forefront of fighting fake narratives, and his work hurts those who have weaponized misinformation to subvert the Indian democracy,” he said.
He also thanked netizens for the support as the hashtag #IstandWithZubair is trending on Twitter.