Bengaluru Police registered an FIR against 16 Twitter handles over online death threats and call for mob violence against Alt News founder Mohammed Zubair through their tweets.
The city police have booked a Twitter user @Cyber_Huntss and other unnamed accused under IPC Sections 505 (statements conducing to public mischief), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, residence, etc), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 504 (punishment intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), according to Deccan Herald.
Zubair, one of the prominent fact-checkers in the country and the co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News filed a complaint with the DJ Halli police in April, naming Twitter handles that disclosed his address, criminally intimidated him and called for mob violence against him through their public tweets.
Zubair’s complaint named 15 Twitter handles, including one run by Ajeet Bharti, a self-proclaimed journalist who has been tweeting “death threats” against him.
During the Muslim holy month of Ramzan, @Cyber_Huntss, another Twitter user, publicly posted a tweet on April 9th, in which he mentioned sending Zubair a 400-gram package of pork. The tweet, which revealed Zubair’s location in Bengaluru, has been deleted.
“This tweet disclosing my address is meant to compromise my safety and can lead to mob violence against me. The tweet must be read with the context of the slew of hatred that I have been at the receiving end of since March 2023…This targeting of my identity is abundantly clear from the specific sending of pork that is not consumed by Muslims. To send the prohibited meat during the month of Ramzan is to attack me for my religious identity and attack my dignity,” read Zubair’s complaint.
