Delhi court grants bail to Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair in 2018 tweet case
NEWDELHI,JULY 15 : A Delhi court on Friday granted bail to Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair in a case related to a tweet he had posted in 2018 against a Hindu deity. He will, however, remain in custody pending relief in other cases against him.
Mohammed 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.
Zubair was initially charged under sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot) and 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Later, Delhi Police invoked sections 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, and section 35 of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) for allegedly receiving foreign donations.
While he had moved a sessions court in Delhi for bail in the 2018 tweet case, a court in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras on Thursday remanded Zubair to judicial custody for 14 days in a case in which he is accused of hurting religious sentiments.
Zubair is accused in a total of seven FIRs, of which six are lodged in UP and one in Delhi. He has been in custody in four cases against him in Delhi, Sitapur, Hathras and Lakhimpur Kheri.
Out of these four cases, he has secured interim bail only in the Sitapur case and, today, in the Delhi case. He is yet to secure bail in the Lakhimpur Kheri case and Hathras case.
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Zubair has moved the Supreme Court seeking to quash all six cases registered against him by the Uttar Pradesh police over his ‘controversial’ tweets. He has requested the top court to club the cases together with the one registered in Delhi, in which he was first arrested, and sought interim bail in all six FIRs.
-PTI
