BJP backs Zubair's arrest, says he should be responsible for own content

The Bharatiya Janta Party on Tuesday backed the Delhi Police’s arrest of Alt News founder Muhammad Zubair, and said that Zubair needs to be responsible for his own content.

Zubair has been arrested for a tweet from 2018 which is a screengrab from a movie from the 1980s. The tweet, which carried a picture showing the transition of a signboard from ‘Honeymoon’ to ‘Hanuman’ is a screengrab from Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1983 film Kissi Se Na Kehna.

The BJP fielded national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia who said that Zubair is a “self-proclaimed” fact checker, who has shown bias with his selection of news.

“If someone declares himself a fact checker, that does ot necessarily mean he is one. In fact, if you go into his past, it is quite chequered. We respect journalists, news agencies and fact-checkers, but that news cannot be selective,” Bhatia said. “The news you choose to show cannot favour a community or a political party and target someone else.”

Bhatia said that some of Zubair’s tweets have hurt the religious feelings of some people in the Hindu community. He also said that the outrage of political parties over Zubair’s arrest, if seen in connection with Teesta Setalvad’s arrest points at a “poisonous ecosystem”

Party general secretary CT Ravi took to twitter to attack Congress leader Rahul Gandhi who tweeted in favour of Zubair. “This Incompetent Dynast did not protest the arrest of a Marathi Actress for a simple Facebook post by the Fascist MVA Government in Maharashtra. He kept his mouth shut when women & children were raped in Rajasthan,” Ravi tweeted..