Mohammad Zubair, the co-founder of fact checking website AltNews, is in the custody of Delhi Police for hurting religious sentiments. A case has been registered against Zubair under section 153/295 of IPC. Now questions are being raised on the basis given by the Delhi Police regarding the arrest of Zubair.
According to Delhi Police, this case has been registered against Zubair regarding one of his posts on social media. In this tweet made in the year 2018 by Zubair showed an image of a hotel signboard repainted from “Honeymoon Hotel” to “Hanuman Hotel”.
Also read: Alt-News co-founder Mohammad Zubair arrested by Delhi Police for hurting religious sentiments
The big thing is that the Twitter account from which the complaint was received with the Delhi Police regarding Zubair’s post has been created only last year and at the same time it is being claimed on social media that when the complaint was made against this account, there was only one follower and only one tweet has been made from this account on which Delhi Police has taken this action.
It is also surprising that the post for which Delhi Police have arrested Zubair is a movie scene from a 1983 Hindi film, Kissi Se Na Kehna, a romantic comedy directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Then the censor board did not take any objection to that scene but now filed a case for hurting religious sentiments on that scene of the film.
Questions are being raised about this action of Delhi Police on social media, as well as #IStandWithZubair campaign is also being run on social media.
With the arrest of Mohammad Zubair, the Modi government at the Center is being fiercely criticized. Many leaders including former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi have termed the arrest of Mohammad Zubair as shameful. There is also a demand from the journalism world for the immediate release of Zubair.
The IFSO unit of Delhi Police’s Special Cell has arrested Zubair on Monday evening for spreading communal unrest on social media. According to the police, it had received the complaint on June 27, referring to a tweet by Zubair. The police had called Zubair for questioning on Monday after registering a case under sections 153A and 295A in this regard.
The Special Cell of Delhi has claimed that after having sufficient evidence against Zubair, he has been arrested in the present case. Police said that Zubair is being produced before the duty magistrate seeking police remand for further investigation in the case.