On June 27, the co-founder of Alt News, Mohammed Zubair, was arrested by Delhi Police for allegedly hurting religious sentiments based on the complaint filed by Sub Inspector Arun Kumar, posted at IFSO/Special Cell, Dwarka, New Delhi. Since then, police have added sections of criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence, and FCRA violation to the case against him.
On Saturday, July 2, the Delhi Court rejected his bail application and sent him to 14-day judicial custody. Since his arrest, Zubair has come across cameras several times while appearing for his bail hearings, or when police took him to his residence for collection of evidence. Whenever he has come across the camera, Zubair has understandably tried to hide his face by wearing a mask, and pulling a baseball cap low over his face.
However, one more interesting thing has caught the eye of several netizens. Most of the time, Mohammed Zubair has made a conscious effort to hide his ears from the camera while making these appearances. This weird act has left the netizens confused as to whether it is just an idiosyncrasy or something more.
Why is Zubair hiding his face, and more importantly his ears, all the time? What’s the mystery?
— Shubhendu (@BBTheorist) July 2, 2022
A swayamsevak and Twitter user Rahul Kaushik tweeted, “Who’s Zubair? Every single photo he’s hiding not only face, but ears too.”
Who's Zubair? Every single photo he's hiding not only face, but ears too.
— Rahul Kaushik (@kaushkrahul) July 3, 2022
A very hardcore and trained terr@rist only hides his ears in frontal shots to reduce chances of face recognition software identifying him from his past criminal antics or future. pic.twitter.com/VPSJL9B8nx
National Security Affairs Analyst Divya Kumar Soti said that the way Zubair hides his ears, he seems to be highly trained.
The way in which Zubair hides his ears, he seems to be a highly trained one. We do not know how many from RW have been marked by him and his team and their details fed into bloodthirsty WhatsApp groups. All please take special care.
— Divya Kumar Soti (@DivyaSoti) July 2, 2022
Another Twitter user @thinkerspad shared the curiosity of the other internet users and raised questions about the identity of the arrested person and whether it is the same person as in Zubair’s Twitter profile.
Here is actual photo of Mohammed Zubair with Pratik Sinha & Aakar Patel.
— Piyush Kulshreshtha (@ThinkersPad) July 3, 2022
Man in DP is someone else.
He has been hiding his face throughout the arrest.
That led to public curiosity – Why?
Our curiosity was passed to him, so he started hiding ear as well.
Psycho is having fun. pic.twitter.com/7EzXnbAue1
Ears are as Unique as Fingerprints. These are neither my words, nor @hujodaddy1 nor IT Cell.
— Piyush Kulshreshtha (@ThinkersPad) July 2, 2022
This is science. Now relook at Zubair’s antics. 😂😂😂 https://t.co/JXgfZ2cd7E
Whether it is something innocuous or inconsequential, or something far more sinister, we can not know, but this act of Mohammed Zubair covering his ears in front of the camera has definitely got social media talking.
