Pakistani cricket presenter Zainab Abbas, who was covering the Cricket World Cup in India, has left the country amidst controversy surrounding alleged “derogatory” posts on social media.
Zainab Abbas, a member of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) digital team for the event, departed on Monday. While some local media outlets suggested that she was compelled to leave, an ICC spokesperson stated that her departure was due to personal reasons.
As of now, Abbas has not issued a public statement regarding her departure. The BBC has sought her comment on the matter.
Tensions between India and Pakistan, two nations with a history of three wars since their independence in 1947, have added sensitivity to this situation. The two countries are scheduled to play a one-day cricket match in Ahmedabad on Saturday.
Zainab Abbas, a sports journalist and commentator since 2015, became the first woman from Pakistan to cover the cricket World Cup in 2019. She arrived in India last week and had been reporting on Pakistan’s matches in the World Cup before the controversy erupted.
The backlash against Abbas began after a lawyer in Delhi filed a police complaint against her last week, alleging that she had posted “derogatory and provocative” tweets on an unofficial account on X (formerly Twitter), mocking India and the Hindu religion. The posts in question dated back several years and were no longer available on the social media platform. World Cup in India
Additionally, the complaint mentioned a tweet from Abbas’s official X account, in which she discussed Kashmir’s right to self-determination. Kashmir is a disputed region between India and Pakistan.
The lawyer, Vineet Jindal, also wrote to India’s Home Minister Amit Shah and the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Jay Shah, seeking Abbas’s removal as an ICC presenter.
Social media users in both India and Pakistan engaged in the controversy, with some sharing screenshots of posts attributed to her unverified account and criticizing her. In Pakistan, however, many users defended Abbas and questioned the authenticity of the posts shared in her name.
Pakistani journalist Rizwan Ghilzai mentioned that Abbas had left India due to threats related to her social media posts. He expressed disappointment that the ICC couldn’t ensure her safety as their presenter.