Twitter handle that led to Alt News founder Mohammed Zubair's arrest, now deleted: Delhi Police

Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of the Alt News website, was arrested by the Delhi Police on Monday for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets posted in 2018 related to Lord Hanuman.

New Delhi: The anonymous Twitter handle that led to the arrest of fact-checker and Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, has been deleted and does not exist on the microblogging site anymore, PTI reported quoting Delhi police. "We are trying to identify and trace the usage of the Twitter account to ascertain the reason behind him or her deleting the account. However, we suspect that the person must be scared after the matter came to the limelight," a source said. The account, which had only one follower at the time of Zubair’s arrest, went past 1,200 followers in just one night. 

The co-founder of the fact-checking website was arrested by the Delhi Police on Monday for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets posted in 2018 related to Lord Hanuman.

The post that got Mohammed Zubair arrested

"The Twitter handle namely Hanuman Bhakt @balajikijaiiin had shared a tweet against another Twitter handle in the name of Mohammed Zubair@zoo_bear, in which it has been tweeted by Zubair that 'Before 2014: Honeymoon Hotel. After 2014: Hanuman Hotel' and has shown a picture of a signboard of a hotel named "Honeymoon Hotel" changed to "Hanuman Hotel," the FIR read.

According to the first information report, @balajikijaiiin tweeted: "Linking our God Hanuman ji with Honey Moon is direct insult of Hindus because he is brahmchari. Kindly take action against this guy."

Mohammed Zubair’s custody extended

A Delhi court on Tuesday extended Zubair's custodial interrogation by four days.

On June 20, a case against Zubair was registered under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, language etc.) and 295A (deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), KPS Malhotra, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations), had said.

According to the DCP, Zubair was arrested in connection with one of his tweets that had a questionable image with the purpose of deliberately insulting the god of a particular religion.

Mohammed Zubair's financial transactions to be examined

The Delhi Police on Wednesday wrote to multiple banks seeking information about bank account details and other financial transactions of fact-checking website Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair who is under police custody over an "objectionable" tweet, officials said.

“We are currently focusing on the source of donation and other financial transactions made into the bank accounts associated with Alt News. We have evidence that in the last three months, a transaction amounting to Rs 50 lakh was made into one of the accounts. We are further analysing the transactions made from multiple bank accounts," a senior police officer said.

(With PTI inputs)