SC grants 5-day bail to Alt News’ co-founder Mohammed Zubair

The Supreme Court on Friday granted five days of interim bail to Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, who was recently arrested by Delhi Police.

Zubair was arrested by Delhi police on June 27 for making an “objectionable” tweet related to Hindu deity Hanuman in 2018. On July 4, a court in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur remanded him to 14 days’ judicial custody based on FIR against him for allegedly calling Hindu seers “hate mongers.”

In his bail petition the hate speech case, Zubair had told a bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari on Thursday that he was facing threat to his life.

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“The foundation of this case is a tweet. We seek quashing of proceedings, and questions of police or judicial custody are irrelevant now. There is no case made out and the proceedings need to be quashed,” Zubair’s counsel, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves told the top court.

The Supreme Court will hear the matter after five days.

As per the bail conditions, Zubair cannot post any messages on social media neither leave Delhi.

Zubair in 2018 had tweeted a clip from Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1983 film Kissi Se Na Kehna.

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As the clip showed the board reading ‘Hanuman Hotel’ in Hindi, with its paint marks suggesting that it was earlier named ‘Honeymoon,’ Zubair had captioned it with, “Before 2014: Honeymoon Hotel, After 2014: Hanuman Hotel.”

The Delhi Police called the tweet “highly proactive and more than sufficient to incite feeling of hatred” in its FIR.