Mohammed ‘John Doe’ Zubair faces ED Action

Mumbai: While the Supreme Court of India on Wednesday granted AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair bail in all the eight cases registered against him in Uttar Pradesh, the Enforcement Directorate is likely to register an offence against him for the receipt of foreign funding to deliberately publish fake news tweets from his public handle.

“Zubair had admitted to prosecution officers that he received several lakhs of rupees for tweeting deliberate falsehoods in the public domain over social media and the funds are believed to have been channelled to him from foreign countries, including one inimical to India. The ED is considering a detailed probe into the issue now,” a person close to the development told First India. Another aspect that has perplexed Indian investigators is that Zubair does not seem to have any precedents prior to 2017 in the public doman, or at least none that agencies that delved into his past were able to discover.

“It is a fact that an investigation could not find anything about his family, and even some data regarding his educational background through the University of Uttar Pradesh and other regions in India dating back to 2011 is unavailable,” this person said. Notably, Zubair spent 24 days in custody after FIRs were lodged against him in different parts of Uttar Pradesh for posting tweets that allegedly hurt religious sentiments. The UP state police had also set up a Special Investigation Team to investigate the allegations.