COURT SENDS ALT NEWS’ ZUBAIR TO 4-DAY CUSTODY

NT Correspondent
New Delhi

A Delhi court on Tuesday remanded Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of the hugely popular fact-checking website Alt News, in police custody for four days (till July 2). He will be taken to Bengaluru to recover his laptop and other devices.

Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police on Monday on charges of hurting religious sentiments for a tweet that he had posted in March 2018. A magistrate had sent him to police custody for a day. On Tuesday, the police sought a five-day custody of Zubair, claiming that he has been booked in other cases and he was not cooperating with the probe.

Advocate Vrinda Grover, appearing on behalf of Zubair, told the court that the image posted by the journalist in his tweet is from a 1983 Hindi film by Rishikesh Mukherjee. “It is not a place of worship. This is a joke on the honeymooners.”

Many flay arrest

Media organisations and opposition leaders criticised the Delhi Police and the Bharatiya Janata Party for Zubair’s arrest. The Editors Guild of India said Zubair should be immediately released to buttress the commitments made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the G7 meet in Germany to ensure a resilient democracy by protecting online and offline content.

“It is apparent that Alt News’ alert vigilance was resented by those who use disinformation as a tool to polarise the society and rake nationalist sentiments,” it stated.

The Digipub News India Foundation, an 11-member digital-only news association, stated this is the sixth case against Zubair and that he was previously booked for calling three Hindutva supremacists as hatemongers.

“In a democracy, where every individual possesses the right to exercise the freedom of speech and expression, it is unjustifiable that such stringent laws are being used as tools against journalists. DIGIPUB urges the Delhi Police to withdraw the case immediately.” United States-based non-profit organisation Committee to Protect Journalists also called for Zubair’s immediate and unconditional release.

“The arrest of journalist Mohammad Zubair marks another low for press freedom in India, where the government has created a hostile and unsafe environment for members of the press reporting on sectarian issues,” said Steven Butler, the organisation’s South Asia programme coordinator. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi remarked that all those exposing the “BJP’s hate, bigotry and lies” constitute a threat to the saffron party.

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra said that the BJP “hates facts and everything that Zubair stands for. They like to live in a world of make-believe and propaganda where only what the BJP puts out is the truth.”