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NEW DELHI : Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair who has been taken into custody by the Delhi Police on 27 June, for allegedly hurting religious sentiments by sharing a tweet in 2018 of a film poster that was released decades ago, has approached the Delhi Court challenging his extended police custody.
Zubair was brought to Bengaluru by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police Special Cell on Thursday.
Zubair had shared a tweet of a poster from the 1983 Hindi film Kissi se na Kehna. The poster was the picture of a hotel the name of which changed from ‘Honeymoon Hotel’ to ‘Hanuman Hotel’. A twitter account which goes by the name Hanuman Bhakt with seemingly less followers and even lesser posts, raised an issue with the tweet and asked the Delhi police to take action.
The journalist was also one of the few that had pointed out the blasphemous comments of now suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma on the Prophet Mohammad during a prime time news show by Navika Kumar.
Zubair's petition which challenges the trial court's 28 June order granting four days of custody of Zubair to the Delhi Police was mentioned by his lawyer, advocate Vrinda Grover, before Justice Sanjeev Narula who agreed to list the matter for hearing on Friday.
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 Sarvari.
Earlier this month, a case against 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 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 Zubair for questioning in some other case but he was arrested in the present case in haste.
“Someone recently tweeted Zubair's tweet of 2018, and the present case was filed. The anonymous Twitter handle had its very first tweet, which cited Zubair's tweet, which has been picked up by police. The agency is playing mischief," the counsel submitted.
Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that journalists should not be jailed for "what they write, what they tweet, and what they say". The UN Chief said people should be allowed to express themselves freely without the threat of any harassment.