INDIA: On Thursday, Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair challenged the remand in connection with a 2018 controversial tweet on the microblogging platform Twitter in which he allegedly hurt the religious sentiments of a community.
On Tuesday, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarvaria of Patiala House Courts granted Zubair four days’ custody in connection with one of his tweets. He is currently in police custody. Because his counsel raised the issue on Thursday, a high court vacation bench agreed to hear it on Friday.
As part of the investigation, the Special Cell of the Delhi Police flew Zubair to Bengaluru to retrieve his laptop, which he used to upload different contents on social media sites.
Zubair was charged under Indian Penal Code sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups based on religion, race, place of birth, or residence) and 295A for one of his offensive tweets (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs).
The FIR stated that “Mohammed Zubair purposefully transmitted and published such posts through electronic media to insult the religious feelings of a specific community with the intent to provoke breach of peace.”
According to the FIR, accused Zubair used a screengrab from an old Hindi movie that showed an image of a hotel with the sign ‘Hanuman hotel’ instead of ‘Honeymoon hotel.’ “BEFORE 2014: Honeymoon Hotel,” Zubair wrote in his tweet. Hanuman Hotel after 2014″.
“Linking our God Hanuman Ji with Honeymoon is a direct insult of Hindus because he is a brahmachari,” the complainant wrote, tagging Delhi Police. Please take appropriate action.”
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