New Delhi: Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair has approached the Delhi high court challenging his police remand in a case where police has deemed his 2018 tweet of a film still ‘objectionable’ and capable of causing religious animosity.
The petition, which challenges a trial court’s June 28 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, July 1.
Zubair was arrested by Delhi Police on June 27 and was sent to one-day police custody by the trial court on the same day.
After being produced before a magistrate on the expiry of his one-day custodial interrogation, his custody was extended by another four days by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarvari.
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 clear haste.
The investigation was kickstarted after Delhi Police took note of a tweet by the ‘@balajikijaiin’ earlier this month, alleging that Zubair had tweeted a “questionable” image to “deliberately insult the god of a particular religion”.
This tweet, which Zubair posted in March 2018, was a screengrab of a film by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. As reported before, this anonymous Twitter account now no longer exists.
The case against Zubair charges him 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).
The investigating agency had also claimed that Zubair “did not cooperate” and various material from his phone was “deleted.”
(With PTI inputs)