Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair remanded to one-day police custody

A Delhi court in Burari on Monday granted the Delhi Police one-day police custody of fact-checking website Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, in an alleged case of promoting enmity among religious groups..The duty magistrate Ajay Narwal remanded Zubair to one day police custody and he will be produced before the Court again tomorrow after this custody expires.Zubair has been booked for offences under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups) and 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship, with intent to insult the religion of any class) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for a tweet he had put out in 2018.The case against Zubair registered a case based on a complaint from a Twitter handle alleging Zubair had tweeted a questionable image with the intention to deliberately insult the God of a particular religion.“Such tweets were getting retweeted and it appeared that there is a brigade of social media entities, who indulge in insult mongering thereby leading to a possible ramification on communal harmony and is overall against the maintenance of public tranquility,” a statement by Delhi Police said.During the course of hearing the police had sought 7 days custody on the ground that Zubair was not cooperating with the investigation.The opposite party argued, that there was no ground for police to take his custody as he was duly cooperating with the investigation..According to the police, Zubair had on Monday joined the investigation in an FIR from 2020 registered by the Delhi police’s special cell.During investigation of the said FIR, Delhi Police had given a status report before the High Court saying Zubair’s tweet was not found to be objectionable.However, another tweet from 2018 was flagged to Delhi Police.Today's arrest came pursuant to that.“In the month of June, 2022, when Delhi Police was alerted by a twitter handle that Mohammad Zubair had earlier made an objectionable tweet and his followers/social media entities had amplified and created a series of debates/hate mongering in the thread, he was examined in this case, i.e., FIR no. 172/22 under Sections 153A/295 IPC and his role was found objectionable. He was evasive on the questions and neither provided the necessary technical equipment for the purpose of the investigation nor cooperated in the investigation.”.Advocates Soutik Banerjee and Kawalpreet Kaur appeared for Zubair.