Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair sent to one-day police remand
Jun 27, 2022
New Delhi [India], June 28 : Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair has been sent to one-day police remand for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments of a particular community on Monday.
Alt News co-founder Pratik Sinha was also present with Mohammed Zubair who was arrested Zubair on the charges of promoting enmity and insulting religious beliefs today.
"Counsel for Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair had moved bail application which was declined by the court on grounds of "not finding merits." Delhi Police's application for 1-day police remand was granted by the court," said Delhi Police officials.
He was booked under sections 153A (promotion of enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language) 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), Delhi Police said.
According to police, a complaint was received against the co-founder through Twitter regarding a tweet by Zubair. He was called for questioning today after which the IFSO unit of the Delhi Police Special Cell arrested Zubair, police said.
He was evasive on the questions and neither provided the necessary technical equipment for the purpose of the investigation nor cooperated in the investigation.
Reportedly, the social media post by Zubair hurt religious sentiments after a picture (in tweet) showed where the signboard of a hotel 'Honeymoon hotel ' was changed to 'Hanuman hotel'.
The present case was registered on basis of a post on Twitter by handling Hanuman Bhakt @ balajikijaiin where he showed his anger against another Twitter handle in name of Mohammed Zubair regarding the post "BEFORE 2014: Honeymoon Hotel. After 2014: Hanuman Hotel", informed Delhi police senior officials.
"The said post of Mohammed Zubair containing pictures and words against a particular religious community is highly provocative and done deliberately which are more than sufficient to incite hatred among people which can be detrimental for maintenance of public tranquillity," said Delhi Police.
Pratik Sinha, another co-founder at Alt News, commented on his colleague's arrest and wrote on Twitter, "Zubair was called today by special cell, Delhi for investigation in a 2020 case for which he already had a protection against arrest from High Court."
"However, today at around 6.45 pm we were told he has been arrested in some other FIR for which no notice was given which is mandatory under law for the Sections under which he has been arrested. Nor FIR copy is being given to us despite repeated requests," Sinha said in a statement on the microblogging site.
