The International Cricket Council (ICC) has refuted reports suggesting that Pakistani sports presenter Zainab Abbas was deported from India during her participation in the World Cup 2023 broadcast team. According to the ICC, her departure from the country is attributed to “personal reasons.”
ICC official C. Rajshekhar Rao confirmed this development to Arab News. While initial media accounts suggested that security concerns prompted her exit, these arose after a complaint was filed in Delhi last week by a local lawyer. The complaint alleged that Abbas had posted “derogatory” tweets targeting the Hindu faith in the past.
The complaint was rooted in screenshots of posts made by an account bearing Abbas’s name in the Twitter handle, dating back to 2014. This newspaper has been unable to independently verify the authenticity of these tweets and has sought a comment from Abbas regarding this matter.
The complaint included one of her tweets from her official account, cited solely for its pro-Kashmir content.
on October 4, advocate Vineet Jindal filed a cyber complaint against Abbas with New Delhi police’s cyber cell. In his complaint, Jindal sought the registration of a First Information Report (FIR) against the presenter under various legal sections, citing “disparaging remarks about Hinduism and anti-India statements.”
On the micro-blogging site X, the lawyer called for the removal of Abbas from the list of presenters for the ongoing World Cup, asserting that “anti Bharat people are not welcome in Bharat.”
Two days later, on October 7, Jindal shared a redacted version of another letter addressed to Board of Cricket Control of India Secretary Jay Shah. This letter contained the recipient’s name and the subject, urging action against the presenter for her purported anti-India remarks.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Samaa TV reported that Abbas has “categorically denied the allegations,” maintaining that she has been “unjustly targeted.” Sources close to the presenter emphasized that she has been falsely accused and that her past social media activity was “taken out of context” and “unrelated to her work as a presenter.”
