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Synopsis

A Delhi court today adjourned the hearing to July 14 in the bail plea moved by Alt News Co-Founder Mohammed Zubair, accused of hurting religious sentiments and promoting enmity in a tweet in 2018.

On July 2, Zubair was denied bail by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Snigdha Sarvaria.

At the request of Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Atul Srivastava, appearing in virtual conferencing (VC), Additional Sessions Judge Devender Kumar Jangala of the Patiala House Courts adjourned the matter to July 14.

Advocate Vrinda Grover appearing for Zubair submitted the facts of the case and argued that the tweet in question is an image of a 1983 movie by Rishikesh Mukherjee and that image is a screenshot of that movie, “Kisi se na Kehna”.

Grover submitted that the first FIR was registered against Zubair by SI Arvind Kumar under Section 295 (insulting religion), and later it was changed to 295A and 153A of the Indian Penal Code added, thereafter, Sections 201 and 120B of IPC and Section 35 of the FCRA Act were also added.

Grover argued that the Delhi Police have been constantly adding to the initial case and making improvements.

Grover mentioned a Twitter Profile made in October 2021, with just one follower, who had retweeted Zubair’s tweet, and Delhi Police within hours had filed an FIR against Zubair, in the name of Social Media monitoring.

It was further added that several other Twitter users had shared the same image, and only Zubair had been “framed”, with no FIR against others.

Meanwhile, SPP Atul Srivastava for the State requested the court to list the matter for July 14, as he is in Bhopal and needs time to get back to Delhi.

Accordingly, Court adjourned the matter to July 14.

Zubair was initially charged with Indian Penal Code Sections 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups) and 295 (injuring or defiling a place of worship with the intent to insult the religion of any class), and subsequently, offenses under Section 35 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010, as well as Sections 201 (evidence destruction) and 120b (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, were added.

He was arrested based on a complaint made by a Twitter handle, wherein it was alleged that he tweeted the questionable image with an intent to insult the god of a particular religion.

As per the FIR, Zubair's 2018 tweet about renaming a "Honeymoon Hotel" after the Hindu god Hanuman is an insult to their religion.

Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police on June 27 and remanded in police custody for one day by the duty magistrate.

On June 28, he appeared before CMM and was remanded to further police custody for four days. Thereafter, he was remanded in Judicial Custody for 14 days.

Recently, he has been remanded to 14-day Judicial custody in another FIR in UP’s Lakhimpur Kheri district.

Case Title: State v. Mohammed Zubair