Investigative journalist Rana Ayyub was recently subjected to a vicious doxxing attack by a Right-wing Twitter (X) handle, @HPhobiaWatch. Her number was made public in a tweet by the handle at 1:15 am on November 8, following which she faced incessant phone calls, video calls and lewd messages throughout the rest of the night.
I have lived a nightmare. At around 1 am tonight, this right wing handle posted my number on twitter, asked his followers to text me. My phone did not stop ringing through the night. Video calls, obscene Whats app msgs. Hello @MumbaiPolice @NCWIndia, this was targeted harassment pic.twitter.com/3LOc1BaO1Z
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) November 8, 2024
Speaking to Alt News, Ayyub expressed her disgust and frustration at what transpired. “Is this how women must feel safe in the country? We go on candlelight marches when women are sexually assaulted in India. These heinous acts take place because authorities look the other way as women are publicly harassed,” she told us. She also mentioned that under the tweet that doxxed her, @HPhobiaWatch’s followers had posted screenshots of the late-night texts that were sent to Ayyub.
In February 2024, Alt News published an elaborate report on a certain trend of online vigilantism spearheaded by the Right-wing handle called @TheSquind. In our report, we investigated how the handle, alongside others, ‘exposed’ close to a hundred Hindu women, including minors, who were involved with Muslim men.
This report uncovers the link between these two accounts (@HPhobiaWatch and @TheSquind) and shows how the man who doxxed Rana Ayyub has a history of targeting and harassing women online.
The Link Between @TheSquind and @HPhobiaWatch
On December 28, 2023, @TheSquind tweeted to inform their followers that the handle, @HPhobiaWatch, (this is the one that doxxed Ayyub), would serve as the admin’s backup account.
Further, on March 12, 2024, a tweet from @HPhobiaWatch suggested it would serve as the admin’s primary account for some time.
Who is Behind these Accounts?
The admin behind @TheSquind came under fire in January 2024 for morphing an obscene image over that of a Thanthai Periyar statue. In the original image, DMK politician Udhayanidhi Stalin is seen handing the statue to Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair. Following the tweet, an FIR was filed against the admin of @TheSquind.
Between February and March this year, several prominent Right-wing accounts tweeted that the Tamil Nadu police had reached Delhi to arrest the admin behind Squint Neon and had later arrested the admin’s brother from Bihar. Right-wing influencer Ankit Jain or @indiantweeter claimed that both @TheSquind’s admin and his brother had been ‘saved’ by the BJP leadership.
Alt News spoke to a senior Tamil Nadu police official who identified Chandan Kumar as the individual behind the Twitter handle @TheSquind. As established before, Chandan, therefore, also runs the @HPhobiaWatch account and is responsible for doxxing Rana Ayyub.
Alt News Investigation
Alt News accessed Chandan Kumar’s professional résumé where we found his email ID and phone number.
Using details from the CV, we were able to independently verify that Chandan Kumar is the person behind both @HPhobiaWatch and @TheSquind. Kumar’s email ID starts with a ‘c’ and ends with ‘8’ and his phone number ends with ’03’. We noticed that an Instagram account was mentioned in his Twitter bio, with the username hindutva_knight_. Upon using the “Forgotten Password” option through a phone and entering the username hindutva_knight_, we discovered that a code would be sent to a number ending with ’03’. The number matches the phone number listed on Kumar’s résumé. Below is a screen recording of the process.
We tried the same process on a computer and found that when the username hindutva_knight_ was entered using the ‘Forgotten Password’ option, an email was sent to an ID starting with ‘c’ and ending with ‘8’. This also matches the email ID listed on Kumar’s résumé. Below is a screen-recording of the process.
Both the phone number and the email ID linked with @HPhobiaWatch’s Instagram account can be traced back to Chandan Kumar.
We also found Chandan’s private Instagram profile with the handle @saffronstriker. We performed the same procedure with this account on a phone and were led to the same phone number ending with 03′.
We also performed the same procedure on a computer and found that the account links back to an email starting with ‘c’ and ending with an ‘8’. Below is a screen recording.
Similar to the the Instagram account mentioned above, Chandan’s private account credentials also can traced back to his phone number and email ID.
Chandan Kumar’s Links with the BJP
Alt News accessed Chandan Kumar’s professional résumé which revealed that he worked closely with the Bharatiya Janata Party in the past. Kumar worked at Varahe Analytics as a senior content analyst, where he handled content for BJP’s social media platforms and third-party deliverables during the Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh state elections. Varahe Analytics is a political consultancy hired by the BJP, which runs a network of proxy troll accounts across social media platforms. We found a LinkedIn profile for Chandan Kumar, which mentions that he has worked as a video editor at Varahe Analytics, which corroborated our findings.
Kumar also worked with the BJP at the Association of Billion Minds (ABM), a consulting unit for the party for the Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha elections and various state elections. Kumar also worked with Jarvis Technology and Strategy Consulting Private Limited, a Mumbai-based company that provided technological support to the BJP. According to his résumé, Kumar ‘worked with Bhartiya Janta Party in delivering media contents for Assam state elections’ during his time at Jarvis.
On March 28, 2023, @TheSquind tweeted his gratitude to the Right Wing Hindu community for helping him and his family. He specifically named @MrSinha_, Vikas Pandey and Ankit Jain. He also thanked BJP Tamil Nadu, BJP Delhi and BJP Bihar.
I am grateful to RW Hindu community to extending the much needed help for me and my family. Last 2 months were difficult phase but it could have been worse if I wasn’t’ helped by the likes of Sinha, Vikas Pandey, Ankit Jain, BJP Tamil Nadu, BJP Delhi, BJP Bihar & several other…
— Squint Neon (@TheSquind) March 28, 2024
History of Targeting Women on the Internet
Chandan Kumar has taken it upon himself to fight ‘Love Jihad’, a conspiracy theory that suggests that Muslim men systematically lure Hindu women into marriages and forcefully convert them to Islam. As a result, he pioneers online vigilantism against inter-faith couples on social media. The modus operandi for this vigilantism includes looking for inter-faith couples on social media, and amplifying their pictures, often taken from Instagram, from the social media accounts of Kumar and his cohorts, which have huge following. Once such a relationship is exposed to this audience, the couples face online attacks including personal messages. If the woman has words or phrases alluding to her religion on her social media bio, these are highlighted and mocked at. The female Hindu victims are often dubbed as ‘Honda Shernis’, a possible distortion of ‘Hindu Sherni’.
Our investigation found that ‘involvement’ with a Muslim man, which makes a Hindu woman a person of interest for this group, did not always mean being in an inter-faith relationship. Several women got called out for merely being pictured with a Muslim. Alt News spoke to a victim who narrated how her online nightmare soon spilled into the real world when a group of Right-wing activists reached her house and hurled abuses at her from outside. Alt News also spoke to an 18-year-old victim who was harassed last year for posting images with a Muslim man. The victim, who was a minor at the time of the vicious online harassment, told us that approximately 80 accounts had sent her abusive messages after her images were amplified. “They told me, ‘Muslim ke saath mat reh, fridge mein dal dega’, ‘Love Jihad kar dega tere saath’ (Translation: Don’t stay with a Muslim, he will put you in the fridge. He will commit Love Jihad with you).” The tweet where she was targeted was retweeted and amplified by Squint Neon.
Islamophobic Content Put Out by @TheSquind and @HPhobiaWatch
Alt News has consistently flagged the problematic content shared online by Squint Neon, which has repeatedly violated social media guidelines. After the admin came under police scrutiny, nearly 19,000 tweets were deleted from @TheSquind’s account. Originally created as a parody of The Quint in 2017, Squint Neon has been suspended multiple times but continues to resurface with new usernames, including @squintneon and @squintnayan, and now @thesquind, where it remains popular among the Right Wing, particularly the urban youth. From using the death of photojournalist Danish Siddique as ‘meme material’ to exalting violence against Muslims, the handle consistently posts content which typically warrants the suspension of an account. However, Squint Neon continues to flourish on X even today.
Needless to say, @HPhobiaWatch also puts out similar problematic content; from glorifying figures like Nathuram Godse to turning the deaths of individuals like GN Saibaba and Baba Siddique into meme material.
As per last available information, an FIR was lodged by Mumbai Police on November 9 based on Ayyub’s complaint with the cyber crime cell.
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