Rana, nine at the time, fled with her sister to stay with the Sikh friend's relatives for three months before reuniting with their family in Deonar, a Muslim-majority suburb, which is where she largely grew up.

[12][13] At Tehelka, Ayyub worked as an investigative journalist and her big assignment was to carry out the sting operation upon which her book Gujarat Files was based.

[19] In October 2020, HarperCollins India published an open letter written by Ayyub, to protest the controversial appointment of Actor Gajendra Chauhan as the Chairman of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), as part of the book Inquilab: A Decade of Protest which contains speeches, lectures and letters said to "capture the most important events and issues of the past ten years.

Ayyub had been posing as 'Maithili Tyagi', a student of the American Film Institute, having an ideological affinity for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's beliefs, to enable her to make the recordings.

[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhury have disputed Ayyub's claim that her story on fake encounters in Gujarat, which was the result of an eight-month long undercover investigation, was dropped by them.

"[35] Reflecting on the procedure used by Ayyub in composing Gujarat Files, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay has observed: "Going undercover and interviewing many who had been in the thick of gruesome extra-constitutional operations required bravado and this must be appreciated.

[37][38] In the Haren Pandya murder case, the Supreme Court of India dismissed Rana Ayyub's book, stating that "it is based upon surmises, conjectures, and suppositions and has no evidentiary value.

Prior to their report, the Indian government’s claims could not be verified due to a full communication blackout and a de facto curfew imposed in Kashmir.

the money laundering allegations are part of a broader campaign by the Indian authorities aimed at intimidating Ayyub and silencing her criticism of Modi's government.

The experts labelled the accusations related to the funds raised by Ayyub for pandemic relief work as "the bogus allegations [that] can be traced back to a far-right social media group.

An International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) report found that Twitter has failed to address the abuse against her while withholding some of her tweets at the demand of the Indian Government.

"[68] Several United Nations Special Rapporteurs, associated with the Human Rights Council have intervened in her case three times, warned of the "serious risk" to her life, and called on the authorities in India to "act urgently to protect" her from death threats following an online hate campaign.

[72][73] In 2022, members of the Neo Nazi inspired alt right groups had created Bulli Bai, an app for fake online auction of Muslim women in India with intention to denigrate and harass the minorities.