Netizens Come Out In Support Of AltNews Co-Founder Zubair After He Is Booked For Calling Militant Hindutva Leaders ‘Hatemongers’

Netizens have come out in support of AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair after an FIR was registered against him in Uttar Pradesh’s Khairabad Police station for calling three militant Hindutva leaders, accused of hate speech “hatemongers” in a tweet, The Wire reported on Wednesday.

Bhagwan Sharan, who identifies himself as the district head of the Hindutva organisation Rashtriya Hindu Sher Sena, registered a complaint saying that his religious sentiments had been hurt by Zubair’s tweet. He also alleged that Zubair was inciting Muslims to murder Hindu leaders.

The Alt News co-founder has been booked under Section 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act.

In a series of tweets on May 27, Zubair wrote that prime time debates on Indian news channels had become “a platform to encourage hate mongers to speak ill about other religions”.

He shared a video clip of a debate on the Times Now channel on “The Gyanvapi Files”, moderated by its anchor Navika Kumar.

“Why do we need Hate Mongers like Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati or Mahant Bajrang Muni or Anand Swaroop to arrange a Dharam Sansad to speak against a community and a Religion when we already have Anchors who can do much better job from News Studios,” Zubair tweeted.

All three – Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati, Bajrang Muni and Anand Swaroop – have been booked in hate speech cases in the past few months for making inflammatory statements against Muslims and calling for their genocide.

Netizens Trend #IStandWithZubair In Support Of Zubair

Several social media users have shown solidarity with Zubair and noted that even other news channels have also termed these militant Hindutva priests as hatemongers but action has been taken only against the Alt News co-founder.

Hindutva supremacists, including the head priest of Dasna Devi temple Yati Narsinghanand, had called upon Hindus to buy weapons to commit genocide against Muslims during the Haridwar Dharam Sansad event between 17-19 December, last year. Narsinghanand, Swaroop along with other 10 people were booked for hate speech.

While Narsinghanand was arrested for Haridwar hate speech case in January and later given bail, Muni, the priest of the Badi Sangat Ashram was arrested in April after he threatened to mass rape Muslim women during a rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur.