Mohammed Zubair moves to SC for pre-arrest bail over UP hate speech case

|HT|

Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair on Thursday moved to Supreme Court for pre-arrest bail and quashing of a hate speech FIR registered against him at Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh. Zubair’s lawyer Colin Gonsalves approached the Apex Court against the Allahabad high court refusing to quash the FIR against him on June 13. Gonsalves said that Zubair faces death threats and there is real concern about his safety. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the plea on Friday. On Monday, Zubair was produced in a court in Sitapur in connection with an FIR lodged against him for allegedly calling Hindu seers "hate mongers". He was sent to 14-day judicial custody. After he was produced in Sitapur, the Delhi Police took Zubair back to Delhi.

The FIR was lodged against Zubair under IPC section 295A (deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings) and section 67 of the IT Act here on a complaint by Hindu Sher Sena Sitapur district president Bhagwan Sharan on June 1.

Zubair was arrested on June 17 by Delhi Police in a case related to an "objectionable tweet" he had posted in 2018 against a Hindu deity.

The Delhi Police has invoked new provisions -- sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (destruction of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code(IPC) and section 35 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act -- against Zubair.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)