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A First Information Report (FIR) was lodged against media website Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair on Wednesday, 1 June, with regard to a tweet of his in which he had called a Hindutva leader named Bajrang Muni a "hate monger." Muni had allegedly threatened to kidnap and rape Muslim women on 2 April.
In a tweet on 27 May, Zubair had also labelled Hindutva leader Yati Narsinghanand and former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Anand Swaroop as "hate mongers," apart from Muni.
The FIR was filed in the Khairabad Police Station in Uttar Pradesh's Sitapur district on the basis of a complaint by Rashtriya Hindu Sher Sena member Bhagwan Sharan.
In a video purportedly shot on 2 April, Muni, clad in a saffron robe and sitting inside a jeep, could be seen addressing a gathering in UP's Sitapur from his car. As his procession came near a mosque, he was heard saying that he would kidnap and rape Muslim women if any Muslim man harasses women in the area.
He also alleged that Rs 28 lakh had been allocated to get him murdered by Muslims in the area.
DIGIPUB News India Foundation, a coalition of digital media organisations, on Thursday put out a statement saying that it "condemns in the strongest possible terms the harassment of Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of Alt News."
Stating that this was the fifth FIR registered against Zubair in the last two years, the statement read:
It further stressed, "Journalistic values are fundamentally the same as democratic values. Such repeated assaults on journalists and fact checkers are assaults on democracy. DIGIPUB will stand with Zubair and help him combat such continuing persecution with all legal options."
The foundation also urged the state of Uttar Pradesh to withdraw the case immediately.
"The use of such stringent laws as tools against journalists who have been accorded the role of playing watchdog against the misuse of institutional machinery of the state must be stopped," the statement noted.
While the FIR was lodged in connection with Zubair's remark on Muni, his tweet also mentioned Narsinghanand and Swaroop, both of whom have been charged with delivering hate speeches and inciting violence against Muslims.
Narsinghanand had been booked by the Delhi Police for organising a "Hindu Mahapanchayat" in Burari, which saw alleged hate speeches being delivered on 3 April.
Narsinghanand, the head priest of Ghaziabad’s Dasna Devi temple, had reportedly incited the attendees of the assembly to pick up arms if India gets a Muslim prime minister.
He had said that 40 percent Hindus will be killed if India were to get a Muslim PM. "This is the future of Hindus. If you want to change this, be a man (mard bano). What is it to be a man? Someone who is armed," he added.
Narsinghanand was in February released on bail in another hate speech case against him. The right-wing leader had been booked for organising the Haridwar conclave of 2021, where rabid hate speeches were delivered against the Muslim community.
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