By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will hear the bail plea of Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair in connection with a case registered against him in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly outraging religious feelings on Friday. A vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari said on Thursday the matter be listed on Friday subject to clearance from the Chief Justice of India.
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for Zubair, said his anticipatory bail was rejected by the Allahabad High Court and subsequently he was arrested.
“There is a threat to his life as people out there are threatening him,” he said while urging the court to list the matter urgently.
An FIR was lodged against Zubair in Sitapur district of UP under IPC section 295A (deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings) and section 67 of the IT Act on a complaint by Hindu Sher Sena Sitapur district president Bhagwan Sharan on June 1.
Zubair challenged the Allahabad HC’s refusal to quash an FIR registered against him for a tweet in which he allegedly called three Hindu religious leaders —Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati, Bajrang Muni and Anand Swaroop — ‘hate mongers’.
Zubair’s petition said it was a “new police strategy for registering FIRs in hate crime cases against the criminals as well as those monitoring and protesting hate crimes… This is done with the intention of stifling freedom of speech…”.
Meanwhile, a court in UP’s Sitapur on Thursday granted the custody of Zubair to the state Police till July 14.
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Zubair was brought here from Delhi’s Tihar Jail on Thursday afternoon amid tight security.
The Delhi Police brought Zubair to Sitapur in connection with a case registered against him at the Khairabad police station for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through a tweet.
Earlier, he was brought on July 4 and the court had sent Zubair to a 14-day judicial custody.
Zubair was taken back to the Tihar Jail where he has been lodged after his arrest on June 27 in another case of hurting religious sentiments.
Zubair’s advocate Mukul Mishra told mediapersons that while he was in custody under Section 295A of the IPC and Section 66 of the IT Act, Section 153A of the IPC was added by police today when hearing for his bail matter was held.
Later, police gave another application asking for remand claiming that the mobile phone he used for making the alleged tweet is still in Bengaluru, Mishra said.
Arguments on police remand were heard and his bail application rejected.
The court has granted the state police his custody from July 8 to 14, Mishra added.
Sources said Zubair may be taken to Bengaluru for recovery of the mobile and hard disk that were used to spread the alleged hate tweets.
(With PTI Inputs)
