Days after being released from jail on a slew of charges, including hurting religious sentiments with Hinduphobic posts, Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair is back to what he does best: gaslighting people and attempting to manipulate public opinion by spinning spurious narratives.
And this time around, the motivation is even stronger: to scrub clean his image of being an agent provocateur who painted a target behind Nupur Sharma and stirred an Islamist furore that not only threatened to sabotage India’s diplomatic missions in the Middle East but also led to the killings of at least X Hindus residing in India, most notably Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur and Umesh Kolhe in Amravati.
Far from being apologetic about the storm kicked up by his dog-whistling and the attendant deaths, Zubair seems determined to double down on his path, as evidenced by his recent attempt at whitewashing the murder of a Hindu boy and his recent proclamations in interviews with unctuous far-leftist propaganda portals for whom redeeming Zubair’s public perception is of paramount importance than demanding accountability over the murders of Hindus by frenzied Islamists.
Mohammed Zubair, whose old Hinduphobic posts on Facebook and Twitter mocking the pantheon of Hindu Gods and Goddesses had gone viral on the internet, and for which Delhi Police had arrested him in June this year, recently watered down the murder of Nishank Rathore who was found dead after his father got ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’ message from his phone, presumably for his support to former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma.
Notwithstanding the loopholes pointed out by experts, Mohammed Zubair leaned on the SIT statement that concluded Nishank’s cause of death was suicide and tried to play the victim card for being “wrongly” blamed for the boy’s death. In a tweet sharing the video of the SIT findings, Zubair took a swipe at the non-left, alleging that the Nishank Rathore case was given a communal spin, with many blaming him for his death.
Despite the glaring shortcomings of the SIT findings, along with Nishank’s family’s explicit denial that their son may have committed suicide, Mohammed Zubair conveniently lapped up the report by a government body constituted by a BJP-led government in Madhya Pradesh, something which he and his ideological brethren resolutely opposed just a few days ago during the arrest of the Alt News co-founder.
When the UP government ordered a formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe over half a dozen cases filed against Mohammed Zubair, the Alt News co-founder’s lawyer argued against it while his sympathisers in the media vilified a routine governmental procedure as a political “witch hunt” aimed at suppressing “dissenting” voices.
A few weeks later, Zubair and his supporters exhibited unmatched alacrity in co-opting an SIT report from another BJP-ruled state because its findings reinforced their efforts at shielding Islamists and whitewashing the Alt News co-founder’s role in instigating violence in the name of blasphemy.
This, in a nutshell, is the quintessential leftist way of gaslighting the masses, something which Alt News has mastered over the years. Selectively trashing and hailing governmental agencies for either “submission” or “defiance” has become a hallmark of propaganda-peddling leftist ideologues, who display no compunction in co-opting findings of a government-appointed agency if that serves to bolster their propaganda.
While Zubair leaned on the findings of the MP government-appointed SIT to downplay the murders of Hindus by Islamists instigated by him, he has maintained a deafening silence since his release from the prison on the killings of other Hindus such as Kanhaiya Lal and Umesh Kolhe, brutally murdered by Islamists for merely extending support to beleaguered ex-BJP leader Nupur Sharma.
Kanhaiya Lal was murdered on June 29 by two radical Islamists named Riaz and Ghous Mohammed. The duo disguised as customers and entered the tailoring shop of the deceased. While Kanhaiya Lal was busy taking the cloth measurements, one of the accused attacked him with a long sharp knife, videos which had gone viral on the internet.
According to the post mortem report, he was stabbed 26 times on his body from his neck to shoulder. Kanhaiya Lal was killed for uploading a social media post in support of ex-BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma.
A similar fate befell Umesh Kolhe, a chemist living in Maharashtra’s Amravati, who was murdered by four Muslim assailants while he was returning from his pharmacy on the night of June 22. Kolhe, too, was murdered for his social media post supporting Nupur Sharma, who was hounded by Islamists egged on by the likes of Mohammed Zubair for her comments defending her faith on a TV news debate where a fellow Muslim panellist was mocking Shivling discovered inside the premises of the contentious Gyanvapi mosque compound.
Like Kanhaiya Lal and Umesh Kolhe, there are other Hindus too who were attacked and who sustained injuries for simply supporting Nupur Sharma. But Zubair has consciously refrained from condemning their killings, carried out by Islamists in the name of blasphemy.
However, by relying on SIT report that said Nishank Rathore committed suicide, Zubair is trying to project himself as innocent and insinuate that previous murder of Hindus had nothing to do with blasphemy. This is a classic Alt News hack that they routinely employ, where they selectively carry out “fact checks” to undermine the prevailing narrative.
Alt News and Mohammed Zubair showed no zeal in carrying out “fact-checks” of whether Kanhaiya Lal and Umesh Kolhe were murdered by Islamists for supporting Nupur Sharma, for that would have directly implicated Mohammed Zubair for dog whistling against Islamists, seeking out response from prominent Muslims in the Gulf, and touching off a violent spate of riots and “Sar Tan Se Juda” rallies across the expanse of India.
Apparently, Alt News, which is always itching to carry out “fact-checks”, has been uncharacteristically quiet on what Nupur Sharma spoke on the Times Now debate, a snippet of which was used by Mohammed Zubair to dog whistle Islamists against her, resulting in the deaths of at least 3 Hindus, including Kanhaiya Lal, Umesh Kolhe. The “fact-checking” portal that preens itself on debunking fake news has displayed no desire to check if what Nupur Sharma said during the debate about Prophet Muhammad jibes with what is said in the Islamic texts.
Instead, propagandists at Alt News, spearheaded by Mohammed Zubair, and their supporters among the left ecosystem, instantly hunkered down to the task of painting a target behind Nupur Sharma and instigating Islamists against her. When the fire of their hatred assumed epic proportions, consuming innocent Hindus, Zubair and his allies are relying on the long-hone skill of “selectivity” to absolve themselves and insinuate that the killings of Hindus have no connection to blasphemy murders.
