New Delhi, Feb 7 (IANS): The website of a petitioner and Islamic scholar who dragged Facebook, Google, Yahoo and others to court over allegedly objectionable content has been defaced and left with a message "Probably best not to piss the social networking sites off!"

Petitioner Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi told IANS that his website www.fatwaonline.in has been defaced for the past one week. He now plans to file a police complaint.

The message dated '2012-01-03' was posted on the news and updates column of the website last week, said Qasmi.

Apart from the message on the home page, some of the sections of the website were also not functioning properly, he said.

Linking the cyber attack to his petition against some social networking sites, the scholar, who lives in Jamia Nagar area in south Delhi, said the hackers apparently did not want him to pursue the court case.

The website, containing more than 5,000 pages, was inaugurated by former prime minister V.P. Singh May 21, 2006. It is run by Islamic Peace Foundation of India, New Delhi, he said.

Qasim said that through the website he was daily hearing 150 cases related to Islamic law and issuing fatwa - an Islamic religious ruling, a scholarly opinion on a matter of Islamic law.

He said he provided answers to netizens' questions related to Islam.

"Fatwaonline.in, besides guiding people on matters related to religion and society is also a very forceful means of rapport building between Islamic Peace Foundation of India and common Muslims," he said.

The defacement of the website had affected large masses which were facing problems in getting their disputes solved online, he said.

A Delhi court would next hear Qasim's plea against Facebook, Yahoo, Google and other websites on allegedly objectionable content March 1.