Indian Muslim journalist, critic of Modi, arrested over tweets

Suman Nalwa, a spokeswoman for the Delhi police, confirmed in a phone interview that the charges were based on Zubair’s Twitter posts.

“He had posted some things on his Twitter handle which were demeaning to one community,” she said. “They were highly provocative, and it is assumed that he had done it deliberately.”

Asked to confirm what the content was, she said, “I can’t comment on social media posts.”

Zubair said last week that he had received notice from Twitter that the Indian government had told the social media company that his account — in its entirety, rather than specific tweets — “violates the law(s) of India.”

A police investigation into Zubair’s account was spurred by a tweet from an anonymous account calling out a post by Zubair in 2018 about the name of a hotel, according to local media. “Before 2014 : Honeymoon Hotel,” the tweet read, “After 2014 : Hanuman Hotel.”

The anonymous account — which used the name Hanuman Bhakt, an apparent reference to the Hindu monkey god mentioned in Zubair’s post — had asked the Delhi police to “kindly take action against this guy.” The linking of Hanuman, who is said to be celibate, to “Honeymoon” was a “direct insult of Hindus,” the account said in the tweet last week.

Steven Butler, the Asia program coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit that advocates for press freedoms around the world, said in a statement: “The arrest of journalist Mohammad Zubair marks another low for press freedom in India, where the government has created a hostile and unsafe environment for members of the press reporting on sectarian issues. Authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Zubair, and allow him to pursue his journalistic work without further interference.”

Digipub, a group of news sites in India, said in a statement that “it is unjustifiable that such stringent laws are being used as tools against journalists.”

Zubair, who is Muslim, has in the past exposed hate speech against Muslims and was previously reprimanded by police for a tweet calling out right-wing Hindu activists, according to Digipub.

Modi has been widely criticized for taking a Hindu-nationalist approach to managing India’s religious tensions and for his treatment of the country’s minority Muslim population. In 2002, when he was chief minister of Gujarat, he was accused of inaction after communal violence broke out in the state and resulted in the brutal killings of 1,000 to 2,000 Muslims.

Pratik Sinha, who co-founded Alt News with Zubair, said his colleague was “being taken to an undisclosed location. Neither Zubair’s lawyers or I are being told where.” He added in a later tweet that Zubair was to appear before a magistrate on Monday.

Sinha said that Zubair was detained despite having received protection against arrest from the High Court, and that neither he nor Zubair was given proper notice regarding his arrest “despite repeated requests.”

Nalwa, the police spokeswoman, said she did not know Zubair’s exact whereabouts, only that he would be in police custody until Tuesday evening.

In response to questions about Sinha’s allegations, Nalwa said she had “not received any complaint.” Al Jazeera had earlier asked Nalwa about the concerns, to which she replied: “I have not seen the tweets and I don’t respond to tweets.”

Amy Cheng contributed to this report.