Will keep tweeting, calling out hate speech: Mohammed Zubair

'I am very vocal, they don't like it,' says fact-checker Zubair

During the 23 days that he was in custody, Mohammed Zubair, the 40-year-old co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News, always wore a baseball cap and a facemask in public. He looked diffident and camera-shy.

But on Friday, two days after the Supreme Court ordered his release, Zubair was in a completely different avatar at his home in eastern Bengaluru’s Kaval Byrasandra. He smiled non-stop and was extremely cordial with everyone he met. He hugged many and did not, even for a moment, look dispirited or daunted.

It was a happy occasion and many well-wishers walked in to congratulate him. Calm and unassuming, he welcomed and thanked everyone for their support.

The father of three politely accepted DH’s request for an interview and sat down to talk about his life, work, arrest, release and so on.

He saw the arrest coming after his tweet on suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s television remarks about Prophet Mohammed in late May almost caused a diplomatic crisis between India and Muslim countries.

"I definitely knew they would go after me. But I didn’t know they would be so vindictive," the telecom engineer-turned-fact checker said. "I thought system utna bhi ganda nahi ho sakta."

Zubair asserted that he was just trying to call out communal hate speech “promoted” by the mainstream media. “I wasn’t targeting Nupur Sharma... my concern was why our channels aren’t stopping hate speech. There were some channels which promoted her or did not stop her or object to what she was saying... Godi media was intentionally spreading fake news. It was a little worrying, a little disturbing. I wanted to expose that."

The exposé angered the right wing, which thought his tweet threatened Sharma's life and forced them to take action against their own spokesperson.

"After I exposed some people (especially after the Dharm Sansad in Haridwar last December), I would not name them, but would just call them love-mongers (chuckles), I was expecting some backlash. They had made up their mind to fix me. But because they didn't get anything against me, they dug out a tweet from four to five years ago. (The tweet) was nothing about any religion. It was about a political party. They made it look like I was abusive toward Hindu gods and goddesses."

He was referring to a still from the 1983 Hindi film Kissi Se Na Kehna that formed the basis for the Delhi police's FIR on "promoting enmity" and his eventual arrest on July 27.

Zubair said it was “bewildering” that the Delhi police sent him an email notice, under Section 41(A) of the Criminal Procedure Code, and called him for questioning in a 2020 case where they had already given him a clean chit.

His lawyers advised him to go or else the police might cancel the clean chit. He heeded the advice.

"I was almost sure they are going to arrest me, probably not in this case, but they might come up with a fresh FIR and arrest me."

And after two hours of questioning, they booked him for tweeting a still from an old Hindi film. The same day, around 9 pm, they produced him before a magistrate at his residence. He remanded him in police custody for a day, as against their request for seven days.

On June 28, the Delhi police's Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) got four more days to question him in custody. But curiously, the cops asked him not about the tweet, but about Alt News, who funds it and whether it has any political support. “They might have filed an FIR about the tweet, but they were asking me all sorts of questions. It was clear they had made up their mind to frame me.”

In police custody, six groups, each consisting of two officials, asked him all sorts of questions. "There were multiple people, from ED, probably income tax, etc.," he said.

"I was very confident about Alt News. They asked questions about funding... but they had already made up their mind and (fed) the same to the media," he said, referring to the accusation that he had received Rs 46 lakh in his "personal bank account" over a four-month period. The money was actually credited into Alt News' business account, Zubair added.

There were also questions about his childhood, schooling and college.

As soon as the police custody ended, cops in UP’s Sitapur booked him for “promoting enmity” over a tweet that had called out a godman who gave rape threats to Muslim women.

Zubair spent the next three and a half days in prison in Sitapur before being moved to the Tihar Jail-4 in Delhi. He was lodged in a cell with three other prisoners. After initial misgivings, they became friends with him.

In all, Zubair was named in seven FIRs (six in UP and one in Delhi). He was released on July 20 following a Supreme Court order.

Responding to the Delhi police's allegation that his phone was formatted, Zubair said the device had a different, customised but secure operating system. "They could not make out what the application was. Apple samajh mein aata hai, Android samajh mein aata hai, (but) this is an altogether new thing (the cops would say). Pratik (Pratik Sinha, Alt News' co-founder) removed Android after reports came that journalists were attacked by Pegasus (the Israeli spyware)," Zubair said.

According to Zubair, one of the reasons why he was targeted was “my identity, my religion". "I am also very vocal. They don’t like it,” he said.

He is now waiting to get a new phone and SIM card. “The first thing I will do is install Twitter and tweet, debunk fake news. I will also call out hate-mongers.”