New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday issued a notice to Delhi Police on a plea filed by Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair challenging the legality of his four-day police remand in a case related to an alleged objectionable tweet he had posted in 2018 against a Hindu deity.
Justice Sanjeev Narula issued notice on the petition and granted two weeks to the investigating agency to file its response.
Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police on June 27 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets and was sent to one-day police custody by the trial court on the same day.
After being produced on the expiry of his one-day custodial interrogation, his custody was extended by another four days by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarvaria.
As per the trial court's order, Zubair would be next produced before it on July 2 (tomorrow) upon the expiry of the four days of police remand.
Delhi Police seek details of 'Hanuman Bhakt' account from Twitter
Delhi Police has sent a notice to social media giant Twitter seeking details of the account that led to the arrest Mohammed Zubair, sources told news agency ANI.
The Twitter account Hanuman Bhakt, bearing username as -- @balajikijaiin had alerted Delhi Police over Zubair's four-year-old "objectionable" post on social media.
According to the FIR, Zubair had used a screengrab of an old Hindi movie which showed an image of a hotel, with its board reading 'Hanuman hotel' instead of 'Honeymoon hotel'.
In his tweet, Zubair had written, "BEFORE 2014: Honeymoon Hotel. After 2014: Hanuman Hotel".
The complainant i.e. the Twitter user @balajikijaiin, tagging the Delhi Police had written, "Linking our God Hanuman Ji with Honeymoon is a direct insult of Hindus because he is a brahmchari. Kindly take action against this."
Noting the complaint, the police in the FIR said that the words and pictures used by Zubair in the tweet against a particular community were highly provocative and more than sufficient to incite feelings of hatred amongst people which can be detrimental for maintenance of public tranquility in the society.
Interestingly, it was the only tweet that was done from the said account and now, the said account no longer exists on the social media platform.
(With PTI and IANS inputs)
