In an ironic turn of events, alleged ‘fact-checker’ Mohammed Zubair of Islamo-leftist propaganda outlet Alt News has been caught lying about the association of Dr. Sumaiya Shaikh, a neuroscientist and “expert in violence, extremism & trauma”.
On 27th September 2025, Mohammed Zubair, notorious for passing off Pakistan Zindabad slogans by his co-religionists as ‘Nasir Saab Zindabad’, shared a screenshot of journalist Aditya Raj Kaul’s July 2022 X post wherein the latter mentioned the allegations of Zubair and Alt News receiving foreign funding. The Islamist ‘fact-checker’ who dog-whistled his co-religionists against ex-BJP leader Nupur Sharma wrote, “Foreign funding se yaad aaya… They are yet to prove…”
Foreign funding se yaad aaya… They are yet to prove… pic.twitter.com/Pyv9nSTWIm
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) September 27, 2025
However, Vijay Gajera, the founder of fact-checking portal, Only Fact, alleged that while Mohammed Zubair claims that the allegations of Alt News or people linked to it, receiving foreign funding are false, Dr Sumaiya Shaikh and Sharfaroz Satani received foreign grants to the tune of Rs 50 lakh from the US-based Thakur Family Foundation.
In no time, ‘fact-checker’ Mohammed Zubair jumped in to offer misleading claims in his defence. Zubair responded to Vijay Gajera’s post with abuse, and claimed that Dr Sumaiya Shaikh and Sharfaroz Satani were “contributor”, not Alt News employees.
“Abey Saste Desi Bhand, thoda aur research karle. They were contributor not Alt News employees,” Mohammed Zubair retorted.
However, as per the author page of Dr Shaikh on Alt News’s website, she was not a mere contributor but the Founding-Editor for Alt News Science, from the year 2017 to 2021. “Alt News Science is no longer edited by Dr. Sumaiya Shaikh. From 2017 to 2021, Dr. Shaikh was the Founding Editor for Alt News Science. Her main role is as a neuroscientist researching violent extremism and psychiatry,” Shaikh’s Alt News author page reads.
Meanwhile, Dr Sharfaroz Satani’s Alt News author page reads, “Dr Sharfaroz Satani is a science writer for Alt News Science and a drug safety physician. He advocates for evidence-based medicine, freethought, and social equality. He also writes satire, poetry and fiction.”
Neither of them has written any article for Alt News since 2021, as per the information available of Alt News’s website.
When called out for falsely claiming that Dr Sumaiya Shaikh was a contributor and not an employee at Alt News, the Islamo-leftist propaganda outlet’s co-founder, Mohammed Zubair, doubled down and said, “Read again. She was not employed by Alt News. Was a contributor.”
Read again. She was not employed by Alt News. Was a contributor.
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) October 5, 2025
There is nothing to ‘read again’, the author page in question nowhere mentions the “C” word, Mohammed Zubair is trying to drum into everyone’s mind that somehow, they should ignore the evident facts, and believe his misleading claims.
However, media reports, Alt News’s own author page of Dr Sumaiya Shaikh and her own old X posts confirm that her role at Alt News was not confined to being a ‘contributor’ but she was indeed the founder of Alt News Science segment. There are many social media posts wherein Alt News and Shaikh herself mentioned that she is associated with Alt News as its science editor.
Back in August 2020, the India chapter of the United Nations also platformed Dr Sumaiya Shaikh, describing her as a “Neuroscientist and Founding Editor at Alt News Science who is using real science to unpack rumours and ‘miracle cures’ spreading on WhatsApp.”
Dr Shaikh has also featured in a few podcasts back in 2020 to discuss about Alt News Science and why she founded it.
Saaarrrr, she was just a contributor Saaarrr!
She got paid ₹50 lakh from Big Pharma just to write 10 articles saarrrr!
Why are you not believing that she was not an editor or a founder of Falt news science saarrrr?🤡 pic.twitter.com/GPGX9MOPEz
— Vijay Patel (@vijaygajera) October 6, 2025
Unless some Madarsa logic is applied, it does not make sense that Dr Sumaiya Shaikh was the founding editor of Alt News Science but not an employee. Netizens are rightly calling out Zubair’s conflicting statements.
Dr Sumaiya Shaikh and Sharfaroz Satani received funds from Thakur Family Foundation in 2020 based on their work at Alt News
As per the records of past grants available on the Thakur Family Foundation’s website, Sharfaroz Satani received funds from the outfit in 2021 under the “Public Health” grant area, and the “Project Impact” was mentioned as Alt News. There is a pdf attached to Satani’s profile page on TFF’s website, which contains his claims regarding the alleged spread of COVID-era misinformation and how he, along with Dr Sumaiya Shaikh, ‘debunked’ these falsehoods.
As per the documentation from Thakur Family Foundation, they made a grant to Dr Sumaiya Shaikh, stating that “WE MADE AN AWARD TO NEUROSCIENTIST AND AUTHOR, DR. SUMAIYA SHAIKH, TO SUPPORT HER FACT-CHECKING CLAIMS RELATED TO EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE.”
The description contains links of Shaikh’s Alt News articles, which involved fact-checking COVID-related misinformation, ‘exaggerated’ effects of Janta Curfew, countering claims of alleged genetic superiority of Indians in tackling COVID-19, it further lists her Alt News articles targeting Ayush Ministry.
It is evident that both Dr Sumaiya Shaikh and Sharfaroz Satani received funding from the Thakur Family Foundation based on their work at Alt News and not for their other academic or journalistic works unrelated to the Islamo-leftist ‘fact-checking’ portal. Even if we keep the legality of receiving foreign funds for writing articles at an Indian fact-checking website aside, a claim, Mohammed Zubair denies, the scale of the grant and its eventual usage do not align well. Dr Sumaiya Shaikh hardly wrote 15 to 16 articles after receiving the TFF grant in 2020, which means approximately Rs 5 lakh per article. Even though Dr Sumaiya Shaikh is from Sweden, Alt News is an Indian registered entity, and this fuels suspicion of potential Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) violations. As per Shaikh’s X profile, she is a “Swedish-Australian-Gujarati”.
Thakur Family Foundation, a US-based organisation funding leftist propagandists in India
Notably, the Thakur Family Foundation Inc., is a United States 501 (c)(3) organisation founded by Dinesh Thakur. It claims to work in the areas of public health and civil liberties. Based in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Foundation invests in capacity building for an empowered society through participative, socially-just governance. The so-called public health activist, Dinesh Thakur, has been allegedly targeting the Indian pharmaceutical sector for years, spreading and amplifying negative news about the industry.
Interestingly, the Thakur Family Foundation also funds the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a so-called electoral reform NGO that also received funding from known Modi detractor and regime change specialist George Soros. The Thakur Family Foundation also funds The Wire, the propaganda portal that has been forced to remove fake stories against the BJP and the Modi government after they were exposed. It also backs Caravan, the ultra-left portal. The Foundation further funds several journalists, who have written multiple negative stories on India, particularly on the handling of COVID-19.
Back in 2022, when Mohammed Zubair was arrested for hurting religious sentiments, during a hearing before the Patiala High Court, Senior Public Prosecutor (SPP) Atul Srivastava told the court that Zubair violated the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act by receiving donations from people in foreign nations, even as Alt News did not have the FCRA license. Now this Shaikh, Satani, and Thakur Family Foundation episode adds to the unfolding drama, likely to get more intense in the coming times if the authorities contemplate probing this angle.