Hounded scribe to start portal

Mumbai: The editor of a defunct Urdu daily, Shirin Dalvi, who was hounded and slapped with multiple FIRs for reproducing a controversial cover of magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 17, 2015, will soon launch a news portal.
Though Dalvi apologized the next day and even penned an editorial clarifying that she held the Prophet in high esteem, the fury of protests increased.“There were four FIRs filed against me in Mumbai and Thane. For over a month I couldn’t see my daughter. Friends and relatives were scared to shelter us for fear of being targeted,” said Dalvi (47), a mother of two. The Urdu daily, Avadhnama, shut down soon after cases were filed against its editor and publisher, Dalvi remained jobless for months as Urdu dailies, except Daily Hindustan, would refuse to hire her or publish her contributions. “Hindustan’s owner-editor Sarfraz Arzoon has stood by me from the day my ordeal began. I became an untouchable in the journalists’ fraternity,” said Dalvi.