Back home from jail, Zubair says, ‘I will get back to my work’

BENGALURU: Family and friends celebrating his home-coming seemed to iron out the stress of the last four weeks that they had endured collectively. The co-founder of Alt News, Mohammed Zubair returned home Friday morning to a warm welcome after the Supreme Court on July 20 granted him interim bail in all the six cases registered against him by the Uttar Pradesh (UP) police accusing him of hurting religious sentiments through his tweets.

Zubair was thankful that he was back home. “I was expecting to be in prison for a longer time given the manner and pace at which the FIRs were registered against me. I am very fortunate to get such overwhelming support from everybody, especially my lawyer Vrinda Grover, my colleague and co-founder of Alt News Pratik Sinha and his mother Nirjhari Sinha. Maybe, because my case was highlighted that it was pushed and I got early relief from the courts. I am thankful to the judiciary,” said Zubair, while hugging his sons.

He has three children, who just didn’t want to lose sight of their father since his return. Zubair (40) was arrested on June 27 by the special cell, Delhi police for a 2018 tweet that he had posted on the microblogging website. Narrating the sequence of events leading to his arrest, he said that on June 24 he received a mail from the special cell, Delhi police asking him to appear before them on June 27 in a 2020 case in which they had earlier given him a “clean chit,” he said.

Police treated me well, says Zubair

“I went to Delhi and appeared before the police with Pratik and my lawyer. They showed me another 41A notice related to a 2018 tweet. They arrested me on the same day,” Zubair said. “There is so much misinformation out there. I was told that during my incarceration a section of the media had reported that I had received Rs 48 lakh in my personal account whereas it was Alt News that had collected the amount through donation over a period of four months,” he said.

He spoke about his experience in Tihar Central prison, where he was lodged in a special cell for around 20 days and his travel with UP police to Lakhimpur Kheri, Sitapur and Hathras for his cases. Zubair confessed that he did not face any sort of high-handedness either by the Delhi or UP police. “I was not tortured. In fact, they looked after me well. I did go through a lot of mental agony during the travel and interrogation. When the UP police formed the special investigation team (SIT), I felt that I would be in prison for a long time,” said Zubair.

Despite the ordeal that he and his family have gone through, he remains committed to going back to his work once he gets a new phone. “Thanks to what happened in the last one month, my family has become news and tech-savvy. They earlier used to scold me for getting into trouble because of my work. Today, they are proud of it,” he laughed.