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Synopsis

The Delhi Police has informed the Delhi High Court that Alt News Co-Founder Mohammed Zubair remained non-cooperative during the investigation and asked his family to dispose of his equipment including his mobile phone and laptop in case he is arrested by the police.

The response has been submitted in a plea filed by Alt News Co-Founder Mohammed Zubair challenging his police remand and seizure of his laptop granted by the Patiala House Court.

He was arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police for allegedly hurting religious sentiments and promoting enmity by a tweet made by him in 2018.

It has been submitted that the "post of Mohd. Zubair containing picture and words against
a particular religious community are highly provocative and done deliberately which are more than sufficient to incite feeling of hatred among people which can be detrimental for maintenance of public tranquillity in the society."

The Police have also submitted that Zubair tried to mislead the investigation and provided different answers to the same question on repeated queries.

"He disclosed that he is co-founder of Alt News and in order to gain popularity he posts such contents/ post that triggers religious sentiment and he remains trending in news/ social media," the affidavit added.

The Police also revealed that Zubair is Director of Pravda Media Foundation and in the account of said Pravda Media Foundation there are donations from various sources such as UPI, net banking, wallets, which are suspicious as mobile numbers provided by donors and IP addresses captured during the transactions pertain to various foreign countries.

It has been also submitted that the petition has become infructuous as the Police Custody period granted by the Patiala House Court has already lapsed.

In the tweet, Zubair showed a photo of a hotel board that read "Hanuman Hotel" in Hindi. The paint marks on the board suggest that it was earlier called "Honeymoon Hotel" but the name was later changed to "Hanuman Hotel". The photo was tweeted by Zubair with the caption "Before 2014: Honeymoon Hotel, After 2014: Hanuman Hotel".

Case Title: Mohd. Zubair Vs. State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi)/