Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manjinder Singh on Monday sought a police probe into the role of fact checker Mohammed Zubair, alleging that his "screenshots" were used by Pakistani users to fuel a hate campaign and defame India as part of a "conspiracy".
Sirsa said he had lodged a police complaint regarding the attempt to create an anti-India narrative following an Asia Cup match where cricketer Arshdeep Singh dropped a sitter.
Taking to Twitter, Sirsa claimed, "Police complaint against @zoo_bear who worked with Pak agencies to set "Khalistani" narrative against #ArshdeepSingh in India. Zubair's screenshots were used by Pak handles to defame India and fuel hate campaign against Sikhs in India. He was a part of planned conspiracy against Sikhs." According to Sirsa, Zubair's screenshots were used by Pak handles to defame India and fuel hate campaign against Sikhs in India.
"This is a planned conspiracy to create communal disharmony in our nation. We demand an enquiry into who supported Zubair in creating this Khalistani agenda," said Sirsa.
In another tweet, he demanded a strong message from Wikipedia. "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 context of Arshdeep," he said.
Cricketer Arshdeep became the target of vicious online trolling after he dropped a crucial catch in the death overs resulting in the defeat of his side against Pakistan in the Asia Cup game on Sunday night. The word India was replaced with Khalistan on Singh's Wikipedia page by an anonymous user even as these changes were shortly undone by another editor.
Pictures were shared on social media, stating that "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).
Following Sunday's match, Arshdeep Singh became the top trend on social media after he dropped a sitter in the Super 4 match of the Asia Cup 2022 at a very crucial juncture of the match.
The Ministry of Electronics and Technology on Monday said that "no intermediary operating in India can permit this type of misinformation" after cricketer Arshdeep Singh's Wikipedia page was edited by an unregistered user, linking him to the separatist Khalistani movement.
"No intermediary operating in India can permit this type of misinformation and deliberate efforts to incitement and user harm - violates our govt's expectation of Safe & Trusted Internet," tweeted Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MoS Electronics and Technology.
