The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday denied that Pakistani sports presenter Zainab Abbas was deported from India \u2014 where she was a part of the World Cup 2023 broadcast team \u2014 adding that her exit from the country was due to \u201cpersonal reasons\u201d.
\nICC official C. Rajshekhar Rao confirmed the development to Arab News, although some media reports suggested her departure was necessitated by \u201csecurity concerns\u201d, which arose after a complaint was filed in Delhi last week by a local lawyer, who accused her of posting \u201cderogatory\u201d tweets targeting the Hindu faith in the past.
\nThe complaint was rooted in screenshots of posts made by an account with Abbas\u2019 name in the Twitter handle on micro-blogging site X (formerly Twitter) in 2014.
\nDawn.com could not independently verify the veracity of the tweets attributed to Abbas in the complaint, and has also reached out to her for a comment.
\nHowever, another tweet of hers, which was indeed from her official account, was cited in the complaint merely because of its pro-Kashmir content.
\nAccording to Indian news website OPIndia, the lawyer named Vineet Jindal had on Oct 4 filed the cyber complaint against Abbas with New Delhi police\u2019s cyber cell.
\nThe complainant had also sought a registration of a first information report (FIR) against the presenter under various sections of the law \u201cfor making disparaging remarks about Hinduism and for anti-India statements\u201d, the report added.
\nIn his post on X, the advocate demanded that the presenter be removed from the list of presenters for the ongoing World Cup, claiming that \u201canti Bharat people are not welcome in Bharat.\u201d
\nTwo days later, on Oct 7, Vineet shared a redacted version of another letter he sent to Board of Cricket Control of India Secretary Jay Shah.
\nThe letter in question contained the recipient\u2019s name and the subject and sought action against the presenter for her alleged anti-India remarks.
\nMeanwhile, Samaa TV, citing unnamed sources, said that Abbas \u201ccategorically denied the allegations\u201d and insisted that she was \u201cunjustly targeted\u201d.
\nThe report also quoted sources close to the presenter as saying that she has been falsely accused and that her past social media activity was \u201ctaken out of context\u201d and \u201cunrelated to her work as a presenter\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday denied that Pakistani sports presenter Zainab Abbas was deported from India \u2014 where she was a part of the World Cup 2023 broadcast team \u2014 adding that her exit from the country was due to \u201cpersonal reasons\u201d. ICC official C. Rajshekhar Rao confirmed the development to Arab News, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-360605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n