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UP court sends Zubair to 14-day judicial custody; SC to hear plea today
Mohammed Zubair, at present under judicial custody in a prison in Sitapur in connection with another FIR, is scheduled to be presented for a hearing at the Supreme Court on Tuesday for the next hearing in a petition seeking the case to be quashed.
A local court in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri said on Monday that Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair will be in judicial custody for 14 days, refusing the state police’s request for his custody till at least Wednesday when it will next hear the matter.
The journalist, at present under judicial custody in a prison in Sitapur in connection with another FIR, is scheduled to be presented for a hearing at the Supreme Court on Tuesday for the next hearing in a petition seeking the case to be quashed.
On Monday, the journalist appeared in the court of the additional chief judicial magistrate of Mohammedi through video conferencing in a plea filed by the police seeking his remand for 14 days over allegations that he tweeted a video with fake news. The prosecution has sent him to judicial custody for now, said assistant prosecuting officer Avadhesh Yadav.
The Lakhimpur Kheri FIR is the second UP police case in which Zubair has been booked for his tweets in addition to the Sitapur case. The third case over his tweets was filed by Delhi Police, which first arrested him last month.
In all three cases, at contention are tweets. The Delhi Police case related to a still posted from a 1983 Bollywood movie, which an unnamed social media complainant said amounted to hurt religious sentiments.
In the second case, filed by Sitapur police, Zubair has been booked for hurting religious sentiments by posting videos of three right-wing leaders who are separately being prosecuted for hate speech. It is in this case that the journalist secured interim bail from the top court after his lawyers called for the case to be quashed because the post, they argued, was aimed at exposing hate speech. The Supreme Court, while ordering the interim bail, said Zubair will need to remain within the Sitapur court’s jurisdiction and not tweet or destroy any evidence.
The third FIR, in Lakhimpur, relates to a complaint filed by a local journalist accusing Zubair of misrepresenting a news story in his tweet with an intention to provoke enmity. As per the complaint, the story had been aired on the channel that Katiyar represented. The post by Zubair purported to flag fake news being aired by the channel.
