An Indian journalist working with Gulf News at Dubai, has been threatened that his passport would be impounded and he would be arrested as and when he returned to India. His crime? He had apparently written reports exposing Islamophobic social media posts by Indian expatriates working in UAE and Gulf countries. The reports had led in some cases to police action and some of the Indian expatriates had been sacked.

Mazhar Farooqui, Features Editor looking after Special Reports, claims he was inundated with abusive and threatening messages forwarded to his mail, on WhatsApp, on Facebook Messenger and on Twitter. He also claimed that while some of the accounts have been deactivated and some tweets deleted, several threats were issued from verified accounts and by people followed by the Indian Prime Minister.