The Delhi High Court gave the police two weeks to file its reply on the plea challenging the June 28 order of the trial court. The trial court had ordered Zubair to be remanded in police custody for four days. Zubair was arrested on June 27 for hurting religious sentiments through a tweet.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday sought the stand of Delhi Police on a plea by Mohammad Zubair, co-founder of fact check website Alt News, in a case related to an alleged objectionable tweet made on a Hindu deity in 2018. The validity of police remand is challenged.
Justice Sanjeev Narula issued notice on the petition and gave two weeks time to the investigating agency (Delhi Police) to file its reply on the plea challenging the June 28 order of the trial court. The trial court had ordered Zubair to be remanded in police custody for four days.
The judge listed the matter for further hearing on July 27 and said the proceedings before the trial court would continue without being affected by the present proceedings.
The Delhi Police had arrested Mohammad Zubair on June 27 for hurting religious sentiments through a tweet and on the same day the trial court sent him to one-day police custody.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarwaria extended his custody by four days after the one-day custody period ended.
The court said the remand order would expire on July 2 and said, “The police remand order is for four days.” I have to hear the other side. I will issue a notice.
According to the order of the trial court, Zubair will be produced before him on July 2 after the end of his four-day police custody.
The police, while seeking extension of Zubair’s custody by five days, had told the trial court that the accused allegedly used religious tweets to become popular and made a deliberate attempt to hurt religious sentiments by creating social disharmony. was.
According to the police, an FIR has been registered against Zubair on June 20 under sections 153A and 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The FIR registered against Zubair mentioned, ‘A tweet was shared by the Twitter handle of Mohammad Zubair (@zoo_bear) from the Twitter handle of Hanuman Bhakt (@balajikijaiin), in which Zubair tweeted a photo, in which One on which the name of the hotel was changed from ‘Honeymoon Hotel’ to ‘Hanuman Hotel’ on the signboard. Along with the picture, Zubair wrote ‘Honeymoon Hotel before 2014… Hanuman Hotel after 2014…’.
Let us tell you that the above photo was a screenshot of the 1983 film ‘Kisi Se Na Kehna’ directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee.
According to the FIR, Twitter user (@balajikijaiin) had tweeted that ‘Our Lord Hanuman ji is being linked to honeymoon which is an obvious insult to Hindus as he (Lord Hanuman) is celibate. Please take action against this person.
It is known that in the month of June itself, an FIR was also registered against Mohammad Zubair at a police station in Khairabad of Sitapur district in Uttar Pradesh. The FIR has been registered after his tweet in which he had called Yeti Narasimhanand, Mahant Bajrang Muni and Anand Swaroop as ‘spreaders of hatred’.
According to the report, on the basis of a complaint given by Bhagwan Sharan, who described himself as the district chief of Rashtriya Hindu Sher Sena, at Khairabad police station in Sitapur, the police charged Zubair with Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code (insulting any class of religion or religious beliefs). A case has been registered under Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act (deliberate and malicious act done to hurt their religious sentiments).
On May 27, in a series of tweets, Zubair had targeted the prime-time debate aired on Indian news TV channels, in which he said in relation to the ongoing controversy over the Gyanvapi Masjid, “It (TV news channel) spreads hatred. It has become a platform for speaking corrupt language about other religions.
(with input from news agency language)
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