The Delhi Police’s Special Cell in its investigation have found out that Alt News' parent company Pravda Media has received a total donation of Rs 2,31,933 from foreign countries. Police team during social media analysis, have also noticed that Twitter handles that supported Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair and had tweeted in his support after his arrest were mostly from the middle eastern countries like the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait as well as countries like Pakistan.
Delhi Police have invoked new provisions -- sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (destruction of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code and section 35 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act -- against Zubair.
Police said that the analysis of the Pravda Media's donations was done as there were allegations of Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) violations by the fact-checking portal Alt News.
From the analysis of a reply received from Razorpay payment gateway, it was revealed that there were various transactions in which either the mobile phone number was of outside India or the IP address was of foreign countries and cities, including Bangkok, Australia, Manama, North Holland, Singapore, Victoria, New York, England, Riyadh Region, Sharjah, Stockholm, Abu Dhabi, Washington, Kansas, New Jersey, Ontario, California, Texas, Lower Saxony, Bern, Dubai, Scotland, a statement issued by the police said.
“A total of Rs 2,31,933 was received by Pravda Media through these transactions wherein either the mobile phone number or the IP address was of these foreign countries,” said a senior police official. Police said that during social media analysis, most of the Twitter handles that tweeted in support of Zubair were from middle eastern countries.
“Police team found that after the arrest of Zubair, most of the twitter accounts that came in his support were from countries like UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and countries like Pakistan,” said a senior police official.
Delhi Police arrested Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair on June 27 in a case related to an “objectionable tweet” he had posted in 2018 against a Hindu deity.
Earlier, a case was registered against him 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).
On Thursday, police teams flew to Bengaluru along with Zubair to recover his electronic devices from his residence. Police searched his house located in Bengaluru’s Chinnanna Layout in DJ Halli police limits, for more than two hours.
