Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair moves Delhi HC against police remand

As per the trial court's order, Mohammed Zubair would be next produced before it on July 2 upon the expiry of the four-day police remand

Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News. | Photo Credit: PTI

The Delhi High Court will hear on Friday a plea by Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair challenging his police remand in a case related to an alleged objectionable tweet he had posted in 2018 against a Hindu deity.

The petition, which challenges the trial court's June 28 order granting four days of custody of Mr. Zubair to the Delhi Police, is listed for hearing before Justice Sanjeev Narula.

Mr. Zubair's advocate Vrinda Grover on Thursday mentioned the petition before Justice Narula who agreed to list it on Friday. The Alt News co-founder was arrested by the Delhi Police on June 27 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets and was sent to one-day police custody by the trial court on the same day.

After being produced on the expiry of his one-day custodial interrogation, his custody was extended by another four days by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarvaria.

As per the trial court's order, Mr. Zubair would be next produced before it on July 2 upon the expiry of the four-day police remand.

Earlier this month, a case against Mr. Zubair was registered under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, language, etc.) and 295A (deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Police said the case was registered on the complaint of a Twitter user who accused him of hurting religious sentiments.

Police, while seeking an extension of Mr. Zubair's custody by five days, had told the trial court that the accused was allegedly following a trend where he used religious tweets in an effort to get famous and that there was a deliberate effort to create social disharmony and hurt religious feelings.

The investigating agency had also said that the accused joined the probe but did not cooperate and various material from his phone was deleted.

Advocate Grover, appearing for the accused, had opposed the police plea alleging that the agency had called Mr. Zubair for questioning in some other case but he was arrested in the present case in haste.

“Someone recently tweeted Mr. Zubair's tweet of 2018, and the present case was filed. The anonymous Twitter handle had its very first tweet, which cited Mr. Zubair's tweet, which has been picked up by police. The agency is playing mischief,” the counsel had submitted.

During the hearing, Mr. Zubair's counsel had also said that the photo which the accused used in the tweets is of an old Hindi film from 1983 by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, 'Kissi Se Na Kehna', and that the film was not banned.

The trial court had, however, rejected the submission saying it was of no assistance to the accused at this stage.

“Considering that mobile phone/laptop of accused used by him for posting the tweet in question is to be recovered at the instance of accused Mohammed Zubair from his Bangalore residence and that accused has remained non-cooperative and the disclosure statement on record, four days PC (police custody) remand of accused is granted since accused is to be taken to Bangalore,” the trial court had said in a 3-page order.