New Delhi: Pratik Sinha, the Co-founder of AltNews highlighted the objectionable remarks made by Columnist Abhijit Iyer-Mitra. Tagging Sunday Guardian, he wrote, “On June 6, @SundayGuardian published a column by a person who uses language such as “flash your mum”, “spit on her”. Lets tag @SundayGuardian and remind them of all instances of objectionable speech by this person and help them know their columnist better”.
Reacting on it, many twitterati slammed Sunday Guardian for giving space to such columnist. One of them wrote, “@SundayGuardian @ThePrintIndia – shocked to know that your journalists use such foul language – that too in public. Even more shocking is that you are so silent about it. Silence is collusion @HateSpeechBeda see how hatred gets amplified @its_ayush_here thank you for sharing”.
Another person wrote, “Boycott Sunday guardian”.
It all started after Mohammed Zubair, the Co-founder of fact-checking website AltNews, had tweeted, “Dr. Aarti Lalchandani refers COVID +ve Muslims as terrorists, Wants govt to send Jamatis to Jungle & Jail instead of exhausting resources. She is the same lady who’d earlier alleged that Jamatis were spitting, misbehaving & demanding Biryani. @DMKanpur”
In response to this tweet, Abhijit Iyer-Mitra called Zubair “Jihadi Jabbar” and making offensive remarks. He tweeted, “Tell you what Jihadi Jabbar, if you agree I’ll come to your house, flash your mum, spit on her, piss in your living room & demand pork Vindaloo for 3 months. Let’s see if your mum sends me to jail/jungle or keeps feeding me biriyani & wasting expensive test kits & beds on me. Ok?”.
Reacting over it, Pratik Sinha tagged The Print India and wrote, “A proud moment for the investors, owners and employes of The Print India”.
Iyer-Mitra is associated with various publications, most famously including The Print which has regularly published his articles. After his response to Mohammed Zubair, several Twitter users, including journalists have asked the micro-blogging site to take away his blue-tick. They also demanded organizations to boycott him.
Even after the controversy, Sunday Guardian went ahead and published Iyer-Mitra’s column on 6th June.
This time, Pratik Sinha tagged the newspaper to help its management to know the columnist better.