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Amid Zubair bail plea hearing, Delhi court asks: ‘How many offended by tweet?’
Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair was arrested last month by the Delhi Police over a 2018 tweet for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.
As Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair's bail plea came up for hearing in a Delhi court on Thursday, the court asked the special public prosecutor to give details on the number of statements recorded in the case, and the number of people who had got offended. "How many victim statements have been recorded? How many persons are offended?" the judge asked.
"We have tweets and retweets," Special Public Prosecutor Atul Shrivastav told the court. To this, the judge responded, saying: "You cannot go by the tweets and retweets. You have to go by the CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure) and record the statement."
The court was hearing the matter two days after the hearing was postponed as the special prosecutor cited his unavailability. Zubair was arrested last month by the Delhi Police over a 2018 tweet for allegedly hurting religious sentiments. He has six separate cases filed against him in Uttar Pradesh. In one of the cases in Hathpur, he was sent to 14-days custody on Thursday.
The 2018 tweet had a reference to a 1983 Bollywood movie, starring Farooq Sheikh and Deepti Naval.
On a submission that donations were received by the fact-checking website from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the court sought to know whether there was evidence to investigate Zubair under the FCRA (Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act).
In response, Shrivastav said that evidence was collected. "Zubair's brother has been staying abroad from more than a decade," he added.
Rebuffing the claims, Vrinda Grover, Zubair's lawyer, said that she would demonstrate that no case was made of FCRA violation.
"Donations were sought by Pravda media - parent company of AltNews - but they had right from the beginning had specified that they do not foreign remittance. A self declaration has to be made by the potential donor that he/she has an account in an Indian bank," she said.
"Alt News was allowed to receive donations from only Indian bank accounts," she said. "There is no foreign remuneration. Unfounded and unsubstantiated statements have been made by the SPP."
