Weeks after Alt news co-founder got out on bail, #ArrestZubair trends again on Twitter. BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa on Monday said that a police complaint has been filed against Alt News’ Mohammed Zubair for allegedly working in tandem with Pakistan agencies and setting a ‘Khalistan’ narrative against cricketer Arshdeep Singh over India vs Pakistan match.

In the police complaint, Sirsa pointed out how some of the tweets shared by Zubair were from accounts that were very new and quite likely created for the sole purpose of tweeting such a Khalistani narrative. He said how Zubair's tweet was amplified by Pakistanis to fuel anti-Sikh sentiments and defame India as well as spread unrest. He urged the Delhi Police commissioner to file an FIR against Zubair and initiate an investigation.

Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police on 27 June under charges of hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets. He was released after 24 days.

Earlier, he had said that a police complaint will be filed against Zubair for propagating the ‘Khalistani’ agenda.

Sirsa pointed out how Mohammed Zubair had obtained screenshots with the search word ‘Khalistani’ to claim that Arshdeep was being abused and called Khalistani by angry Indian cricket fans after India lost to Pakistan in the Asia Cup match on September 4, 2022.

Sirsa further said that Zubair’s tweets were used by Pakistani agencies to defame India and fuel hate against Sikhs in India. He added that this move by Zubair was a planned conspiracy to create communal disharmony in India. Sirsa also demanded an inquiry into who all supported Zubair in creating this ‘Khalistani’ agenda.

Sirsa’s tweet has made it to a Twitter trend ever since Monday with thousands of accounts people reacting to it using #arrestzubair.

“This is a planned conspiracy to create communal disharmony in our nation. We demand an inquiry into who supported Zubair in creating this Khalistani agenda,” said Sirsa.

He also sought answers from Wikipedia in another tweet.

“Wikipedia must be given a strong message that they can’t let Pak Agencies use its platform to run a hate campaign in India. See how Pakistan agencies started this “Khalistani” campaign in the context of Arshdeep,” he said.

The said troll campaign began seconds after Singh dropped the catch at 11:05 PM on Sunday night.
The player’s Wikipedia page entry was also changed to reflect a Khalistan association. However, these changes were reversed by another editor in no time.

Trollers posted Singh’s picture with the caption “he was named in Khalistan squad for the 2018 under-19 World Cup”.
The edit history of Arshdeep’s Wikipedia page revealed that the user who made those changes was unregistered and was using the internet protocol (IP) address 39.41.171.125.

The user also edited his name to “Major Arshdeep Singh Langra” and a minute later, to “Major Arshdeep Singh Bajwa”. Many random changes were done to Singh’s game statistics.
The address allocation records showed that the particular address was allocated to the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL).

Arshdeep’s Wikipedia page vandalized

Other than the tweets shared by Mohammed Zubair, there was also a targeted effort to vandalize the Wikipedia page of Arshdeep from IP addresses based in Pakistan. When you check the history of the changes made on Wikipedia, you can see who changed it and which IP was used for the change.

OpIndia verified the changes and found out that an unregistered user on Wikipedia with IP address 39.41.171.125 made the changes. The changes included Country Name (from India to Khalistan Punjab), Name (Arshdeep Singh to Major Arshdeep Singh Bajwa), Birth Place (Mohali, Punjab, India to Mohali, Punjab, Khalistan), and more. Even in the Wikipedia page’s body, Times of India was changed to Times of Khalistan, and wherever there was mention of India, it was changed to Khalistan. The changes were reverted by Wikipedia editors within a couple of minutes.

IT Ministry summons Wikipedia executives

Union Minister of State for Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that such deliberate efforts to spread misinformation harm India’s security, and no intermediary can be permitted to operate in such a way.

Earlier in the day, the ministry summoned Wikipedia executives in India and sought an explanation of the incident where someone changed the entry to say that the young cricketer is associated with ‘Khalistanis’. As per media reports, a high-level panel of the IT Ministry that is likely to be led by the IT Ministry secretary, will meet the Wikipedia executives and question them on the checks and balances in place to avoid such edits.

To put things in perspective, Mohammed Zubair shared a part of a clip from Times Now debate in May this year wherein ex-BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma had commented on the divine figures of Islam. Triggered by her comments on what is already written in Islamic scriptures, Zubair led an online mob that eventually culminated into riots and many who even mentioned they supported Nupur’s freedom of speech were threatened with beheading and some were even killed by Islamists.

How Wikipedia page edits work

Wikipedia is not like the other websites where only the admins have the right to make changes to the content. Wikipedia is basically a user-generated content website that can be edited by anyone with an internet-connected device that has browsing capabilities. There are senior editors in Wikipedia that keep a check on the edits made by the users.

Though the website is heavily influenced by left-leaning editors and Wikipedia itself says it should not be referred to as a reliable source, Wikipedia pages show up on the top of Google results and have a notable impact on the information available in the public domain.

Wikipedia itself wrote on its portal that it is not reliable:

Wikipedia is not a reliable source for citations elsewhere on Wikipedia. As a user-generated source, it can be edited by anyone at any time, and any information it contains at a particular time could be vandalism, a work in progress, or simply incorrect. Biographies of living persons, subjects that happen to be in the news, and politically or culturally contentious topics are especially vulnerable to these issues. Edits on Wikipedia that are in error may eventually be fixed. However, because Wikipedia is a volunteer-run project, it cannot constantly monitor every contribution. There are many errors that remain unnoticed for hours, days, weeks, months, or even years (see Wikipedia: List of hoaxes on Wikipedia). Additionally, it is possible that some errors may never be fixed. Therefore, Wikipedia should not be considered a definitive source in and of itself. This includes articles, non-article pages, The Signpost, and non-English Wikipedias.

The same applies to Wikipedia's sister projects, such as Wiktionary and Wikimedia Commons, as well as websites that mirror or use it as a source themselves, and printed books or other material derived primarily or entirely from Wikipedia articles; see WP: CIRCULAR for guidance.

References:

opindia.com