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Synopsis

Alt News Co-Founder Mohamed Zubair in response to the status report filed by the Delhi Police, submitted that he doesn't post content on social media in order to gain popularity and trigger religious sentiments.

Zubair informed the High Court that "I am a fact checker and I post content on social media debunking fake news, misinformation, and disinformation of all kinds, and my work is not limited to any particular kind of posts, nor do I post content for popularity or any other material gain."

The response has been filed against the Delhi Police status report in a plea filed by 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.

He submitted that, "I have not made any disclosure statement to the Investigating Officer or any other police officer while I was in police custody or at any time during the course of the investigation, and any such disclosures relied upon by the Respondent are wholly false, wrong, concocted and inadmissible in law."

Zubair informed the bench that the recoveries have been made from Bangalore on the basis of disclosure statements, however, he did not make any disclosure statement about recovering the device from which the 2018 tweet in question was posted, as the said device was lost in March 2021.

"I have not made any disclosure statement to the Investigating Officer or any other police officer while I was in police custody or at any time during the course of the investigation, and any such disclosures relied upon by the Respondent are wholly false, wrong, concocted and inadmissible in law," Zubair added.

Given the above, Zubair submitted that all consequent proceedings including search and seizure premised upon the concocted and false disclosures are also illegal being extraneous to law and inadmissible in evidence.

It may be noted that it is Delhi Police in its status report had informed the Delhi High Court that Zubair had asked his family to dispose of his equipment including his mobile phone and laptop in case he is arrested by police.

Delhi Police had submitted that 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 tranquility in the society."

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.

"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," Police had added.

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