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DUBAI: Prominent Dubai-based Indian journalist Mazhar Farooqui has been threatened by persons believed to be related to India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for reporting Islamophobic posts on social media.
Threats online and in phone calls against the editor of Gulf News have spilled over to his family, with trolls uttering intentions to harm Farooqui's daughters, whose photographs they have dug out from his social media accounts.
The attacks started last week, after Farooqui's report on United Arab Emirates-based Indian expatriates, who were later booked by UAE police for anti-Muslim posts and fired from their jobs.
"I have been writing for two decades on various issues but recently I reported against someone who happened to be a member of BJP followed by Modi. I was then tagged as anti-Hindu and this malicious campaign started," he told Arab News, referring to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Thousands of social media users from India tagged and abused Farooqui, accusing him of being anti-Hindu. Many tweeted his passport would be revoked if he ever came back to India.  
"When I covered the story of Heera Group, I was called pro-Hindu and now I am labeled as anti-Hindu," said the investigative reporter and Lucknow native who has been living in the UAE for the past 15 years. Heera Group was a company that ran scam operations under the guise of halal investment.
"This is ridiculous because I have no agenda against any community … I am just doing my job," he said, "The fact is that if I had been named Mahesh Kumar instead of Mazhar Farooqui, I wouldn’t have been targeted in this way."
Asked if he was considering traveling to India, Farooqui said, "India is my home and I will always go back. My parents live there, and all this affects me," and added he still believed in the Indian Constitution.
Following the backlash, India's ambassador to the UAE, Pavan Kapoor, wrote a warning to Indian nationals living in the UAE. "India and the UAE share the value of non-discrimination on many grounds. Discrimination is against our moral fabric and the rule of law. Indian nationals in the UAE should always remember this," the ambassador said in a Twitter post on Tuesday.