- Tuesday, April 22, 2025
While an Indian lawyer lodged a police complaint against Zainab Abbas over her alleged anti-India and anti-Hindu posts on X in the past, an ICC spokesperson said she departed due to ‘personal reasons’.
By: Shubham Ghosh
PAKISTANI sports presenter Zainab Abbas, who visited India to cover the ongoing International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup 2023, left the country just a few days after the tournament kicked off following a backlash over her allegedly derogatory posts on social media.
Abbas, who was part of the ICC’s digital team covering the marquee event, departed from India on Monday (9) amid reports by some local media outlets that she was asked to leave. However, an ICC spokesperson said she had exited India for ‘personal reasons’.
Abbas has not made any public remark on her departure from India.
Complaint against @ZAbbasOfficial filed by Advocate & Social Activist @vineetJindal19 with cyber cell Delhi Police.Requesting to lodge FIR under section 153A,295,506,121 IPC and sec67 IT Act for making derogatory remarks for Hindu faith and beliefs and for anti -Bharat… https://t.co/vctiV98wBT pic.twitter.com/f9C6I0OMuD
— Adv.Vineet Jindal (@vineetJindal19) October 5, 2023
Update on Zainab Abbas Matter:- Complaint letter sent by @vineetJindal19 to @BCCI and @HMOIndia seeking removal of Zainab Abbas @ZAbbasOfficial as the presenter at the ICC World Cup 2023 for her derogatory and provocative posts against Bharat and Hindu Dharma.
“Athiti devo… pic.twitter.com/tiHCCRtYW3— Adv.Vineet Jindal (@vineetJindal19) October 7, 2023
A sports journalist and commentator since 2015, Abbas became the first woman sports reporter and commentator from Pakistan to cover the 50-over cricket World Cup in 2019 in the UK. She is the daughter of former Pakistan cricketer Nasir Abbas while her husband Hamza Abbas, grandson of Abdul Hafeez Kardar, Pakistan’s first cricket captain.
The journalist reached India last week and had reported on Pakistan’s first match against the Netherlands in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on October 6. She was due to travel to other Indian cities such as Bengaluru, Chennai and Ahmedabad to cover Pakistan’s other fixtures.
But a lawyer in Delhi lodged a police complaint against Abbas last week over her alleged old posts on X, formerly Twitter, leading to her facing a huge backlash on social media.
According to the complaint lodged by advocate Vineet Jindal, Abbas had an unofficial X account and she posted “derogatory and provocative posts” over there mocking India and its majority Hindu religion.
Screenshots of the posts show that they were written several years back and were not available on the social media platform anymore.
Jindal’s complaint also spoke about a tweet from Abbas’s official X account in which she wrote about Kashmir’s right to self-determination. The issue of Kashmir is a highly sensitive one in both India and Pakistan, both of which claim it in full and have fought more than one war over it since their Independence in August 1947.
Jindal also shared a letter on X in which he urged Indian home minister Amit Shah and his son Jay Shah, who is the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, seeking Abbas’s removal.
Pakistani journalist Rizwan Ghilzai said Abbas had a “safe exit” from India.
“She has been facing threats in India over her social media posts,” he posted on X, adding, “Sad that @ICC couldn’t protect its presenter.”
The reported delay in the Pakistan cricket team and the country’s journalists and supporters getting visas to visit India for the World Cup also sparked a controversy. The cricketers received the visas just a couple of days before leaving, which saw them scrapping a plan to visit the UAE before India. Journalists from Pakistan were asked to submit their passports in person at the Indian high commission in Islamabad and receive the document in person, the country’s Dawn newspaper reported.
Pakistan’s journalists and fans could not attend their team’s matches against the Dutch last week and Sri Lanka on Tuesday (10), both of which Babar Azam’s men won, and they were now looking forward to attending the mega clash between India and Pakistan in Ahmedabad on Saturday (14).
The Pakistan Cricket Board on Monday had expressed “extreme disappointment” over the delay in issuing of visas.
