New Delhi, Sep 6 After the complaint of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) over his allegedly "threatening and torturing a girl child through Twitter", the Delhi Police Cyber Cell and the Raipur Police have filed FIRs under sections of the IT Act and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act against AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair.
On August 6, Zubair had an online argument with a Twitter user after which the AltNews co-founder had tweeted a photo of the minor girl seen standing with the user, with her face blurred out, during the argument. Zubair tweeted, "Does your cute granddaughter know about your part-time job of abusing people on social media? I suggest you to change your profile pic."
Zubair's tweet came under heavy criticism from social media users who accused him of using a child to get back at a critic. It was after this post that the Twitter users started tagging NCW, Delhi Police and NCPCR to take action against the Zubair. Later on August 7, Zubair has also posted a screenshot of the verbal spat with the user in which the user's Twitter handle was seen using abusive language in a reply to Zubair's tweet on a fact check news he posted.
On August 8, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights took note of the matter in this case and NCPCR chairperson Priyank Kanoongo tweeted, "The Commission has taken cognisance of the case of threatening and torturing a girl child through Twitter. Necessary communication has been issued to @TwitterIndia and concerned law enforcement authorities for appropriate action."
Later, on Saturday, Kanoongo informed through a tweet "According to the ATR received in @NCPCR_ A, an FIR has been lodged against the alleged persons for threatening and torturing a girl child on @Twitter. As per the request made by @TwitterIndia an additional time of 10 days has been provided to them to provide relevant information."
The complaint sent by NCPCR, which is the basis of the two FIRs in Delhi and Raipur, mentions three Twitter handles, including @zoo_bear, which is run by Mohammed Zubair, fact-checker and co-founder of fact-checking website, AltNews. The other two handles are @de_real_mask and @syedsarwar20.
( With inputs from IANS )
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