Bharatiya Janata Party leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa has filed a complaint against AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair for “spreading hate propaganda” against cricketer Arshdeep Singh amidst an ongoing row over a purported Wikipedia page on the cricketer that allegedly branded him as a “Khalistani”. Arshdeep has been subjected to incessant trolling after he dropped a catch during India’s Asia Cup clash with arch-rivals Pakistan Sunday evening.
A major row erupted after the Wikipedia page was allegedly edited, though briefly, to suggest that Arshdeep had been selected to play for the ‘Khalistani national cricket team’.
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In his complaint filed before the Delhi Police, Sirsa has alleged that Zubair deliberately “tried to spread hate propaganda against Arshdeep Singh and the entire Sikh community.” According to Sirsa’s complaint, Zubair took several screenshots from various Twitter handles after searching the word “Khalistani” and posted a collage of these tweets on September 5 in his bid to portray that “such abusive and malicious tweets” were posted by Indian Twitter handles.
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“The reality is that most of these Twitter accounts are Pakistani accounts and some were created just for the purpose of this tweet, the sole intention behind which was to spread hate against a nationalist and national level player who has given his heart and soul playing for the country and also against the entire Sikh community,” Sirsa wrote in his complaint addressed to Commissioner of Police, Delhi.
In his complaint dated September 5, the BJP leader further sought a probe into the “conspiracy” hatched by Zubair “in connivance with anti-national elements from Pakistan for creating unrest in the country and spreading hate against the entire Sikh community.
The development came on a day the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology sent a notice to Wikipedia over the vandalism of the cricketer’s page, a development that the Wikimedia Foundation has confirmed, media reports said.
On Monday, Minister of State, MEITy, Rajeev Chandrasekhar took to Twitter to slam the vandalism of Arshdeep’s Wikipedia page and said no intermediary operating in India can be permitted to allow such misinformation on its platform.
“No intermerdiary operatng in India can permit this type of misinformation n deliberate efforts to incitement n #userharm – violates our govts expectation of Safe & Trusted Internet,” Chandrasekhar tweeted.
The IT ministry has said it has taken a serious view of the development and suggested the likelihood of Pakistani involvement in the matter. The ministry has also said the development could have had implications on “national security and harmony”.
