By PTI
NEW DELHI: Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair on Thursday approached the Delhi High Court challenging his police remand in a case related to an alleged objectionable tweet he had posted in 2018 against a Hindu deity.
The petition, which challenges the 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.
Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police on June 27 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets and was sent to one-day police custody by the trial court on the same day.
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.
A four-member team of the Delhi Police on Thursday reached Zubair’s residence in Bengaluru as part of the investigation related to his 2018 tweet, police said.
“Our four-member team, along with Zubair who is currently in police custody, has reached his house in Bengaluru. Our team members are there to collect electronic evidence in relation to the case. This includes his mobile phone or the laptop that he must have used to post the tweet in question,” a senior officer said.
The officer also said the mobile phone being used by the co-founder of the fact-checking website has been formatted and does not have information related to the case.
According to police, Zubair has said he lost the phone which was allegedly used in posting the objectionable tweet.
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, The Delhi Police on Wednesday wrote to multiple banks seeking information about bank account details and other financial transactions of Zubair, officials said.
“We are currently focusing on the source of donation and other financial transactions made into the bank accounts associated with Alt News. We have evidence that in the last three months, transaction amounting to Rs 50 lakh was made into one of the accounts. We are further analysing the transactions made from multiple bank accounts,” a senior police officer said.
He said Zubair will be taken to Bengaluru on Thursday in connection with the probe.
“Our team will take Zubair to Bengaluru tomorrow to seize the devices, including the mobile phone and laptop, that might have been used to post the tweet in question, and also to collect other evidence linked to the case,” the officer said.
Police had said that the objectionable tweet “led to a Twitter storm with hate speeches which was detrimental to communal harmony”.
The officer also said that the mobile phone used by the journalist at present has been formatted and does not have information related to the case.
According to police, Zubair, when asked about the phone he used when he allegedly posted the tweet in question, said he had lost it.
Meanwhile, the anonymous Twitter handle, a complaint from which led to Zubair’s arrest, does not exist on the microblogging website anymore, sources in the Delhi Police said.
A Delhi court had on Tuesday extended by four days the custodial interrogation of Zubair.
During the hearing, Zubair’s counsel said that the photo which he had used in the tweet was from a 1983 film by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, “Kissi Se Na Kehna”, and that the film was not banned.
The court, however, rejected the submission, saying it was of no assistance to the accused at this stage.
The Delhi Police had also told the court that Zubair allegedly “used controversial tweets to hurt religious feelings in an effort to get fame”.
On June 20, 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), the DCP said.
However, he was arrested in connection with one of his tweets posted in the year 2018 that had a questionable image with a purpose to deliberately insult the god of a particular religion, he said.
