In Uttar Pradesh’s Shamli, an F.I.R. has been registered against several X (formerly Twitter) users for sharing a report related to the mob lynching of a Muslim man named Firoz Qureshi on July 4, 2024.
Firoz Qureshi, who worked as a scrap worker, was beaten to death by a mob. According to his brother Afzal, “Firoz was at work on the evening of July 4 when he was targeted and beaten to death by the mob. He had no criminal record and had not committed any theft. We do not know why he was targeted.”
The family has formally filed a case with the police and is seeking justice.
Several X users, including Zakir Ali, Wasim Akram Tyagi, Asif Rana, Saif Allahabadi, and Ahmed Raza Khan, who shared the incident on the platform, have had an FIR registered against them by Shamli police. The police allege that their tweets have incited anger among a specific community and have the potential to disturb communal harmony and public peace.
Among those named, Zakir Ali wrote in his tweet on July 5:
Sharing the information about the FIR, Wasim Akram Tyagi wrote:
Several other journalists also reacted to this FIR on the X platform, with some calling it an attempt to intimidate journalists:
Journalist Meer Faisal, famous for his reporting on hate crimes has told has that he was also intimidated by the UP police when he was there to cover the mob lynching story. He was asked to show the permission to cover the story and was also asked to visit the police station. Below is the video shared by Meer Faisal
