Alt News’ Muhammed Zubair Receives Kottai Ameer Communal Harmony Award
Alt News co-founder and fact checker Muhammed Zubair’s valid contribution to journalism has fetched him the Tamil Nadu government’s prestigious Kottai Ameer Communal Award, 2024.
Muhammad Zubair from Krishnagiri district has been rendering various services to promote communal harmony. He has long been in the crosschairs of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for his organizational relentless debunking of the fake news and false claims mostly pushed by Hindu supremacist groups.
Zubair was one among the first to share the video of a controversial TV debate on a news channel in which the BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma made comments against the Prophet. After this event which led to a major diplomatic crisis, Zubair who has more than half a million followers was demanded to be arrested by BJP supporters by running the hashtag #ArrestZubair on Twitter.
On the Alt News website, he analyses the veracity of the news coming out on social media. His work has helped in preventing the occurrence of violence in society which may be triggered due to fake news. Being a constant target of BJP, he was arrested multiple times. He secured bail in July 2022.
In March 2023, there was been massive spread of fake news claiming that migrant workers are being brutally attacked in Tamil Nadu. After verifying the authenticity of the video footage, Zubair brought out the truth by publishing on his website that the footage was not from Tamil Nadu. His action at the right time helped to prevent the spread of rumors and violence in the state.
Rumors were spread that north Indian workers were being assaulted and murdered in Tami Nadu. Police cases were filed against a BJP spokesperson, Hindi newspapers Dainik Bhaskar, right wing propaganda website OpIndia, YouTubers and Twitter users for spreading un videos of violence and wrongly claiming that migrant workers were under attack in Tamil Nadu, reports The News Minute.
Alt News also worked with the police in collecting the evidence in cases of hate crimes.
Born in Bengaluru city in the southern state of Karnataka, Zubair worked as a software engineer with telecom giant Nokia for more than 10 years. In 2017, along with Pratik Sinha, another software engineer from Ahmedabad, co-founded Alt News.
The Kottai Ameer Communal Harmony Award is an award presented to a person belonging to Tamil Nadu for their outstanding services rendered to promote communal harmony. The award is presented by the Chief minister during the Republic Day celebration on January 26 every year. The award carries a Rs 25,000 cash prize, a medal, and a certificate.
