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Zubair moves Delhi High Court against police remand

The Delhi High Court, on Friday, will hear a plea by Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair 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 Mr. Zubair to the Delhi Police, is listed for hearing before Justice Sanjeev Narula.

Mr. Zubair’s advocate Vrinda Grover mentioned the petition before Justice Narula who agreed to list it on Friday. The Alt News co-founder 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 Sarvaria.

As per the trial court’s order, Mr. Zubair would be next produced before it on July 2 upon the expiry of the four-day police remand.

Earlier this month, a case against Mr. 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 Mr. 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.