Allahabad High Court grants interim protection from arrest to Alt News co-founder & fact-checker Mohd Zubair
A bench of Justices Siddhartha Varma and Nalin Srivastava said Zubair is “not a dreaded criminal, and his immediate arrest is not necessary”. “At the most, his case is Section 196 of the BNS… it requires more elaborate arguments about Section 152 BNS, separatist activity and spirit of separatist activity.”
Zubair was booked in October over his X-post in which Yeti Narsinghanand called for the extermination of Islam. Yeti Narsinghanand is infamous for calling for genocide against Muslims.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had condemned the filing of the case against Zubair and joined 10 press freedom and human rights organisations in calling on Indian authorities to withdraw the case against Zubair.
The Uttar Pradesh police had accused Mohammad Zubair of threatening the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India after he shared a post calling the hate speech of Yeti Narsinghanand “abusive and hateful”.
The High Court bench also directed the state to file a detailed reply to Zubair’s plea seeking protection from arrest in the case. Zubair told the High Court that he was exercising his freedom of expression by citing the hate speech of Yeti Narsinghanand and exposing his conduct.
Allahabad High Court grants interim protection from arrest to Mohammed Zubair@zoo_bear
— Bar and Bench (@barandbench) December 20, 2024
Read more here: https://t.co/oiZ20RGsDs pic.twitter.com/GYpOXfsjlR
Zubair was booked in October 2024 over a post on social media platform X in which religious leader Yeti Narsinghanand called for the elimination of Islam. Yeti Narasimhanand is infamous for calling for genocide against Muslims.
An FIR was lodged against Narasimhanand on the complaint of Udita Tyagi, general secretary of Yeti Narasimhanand Saraswati Trust, on charges of inciting the Muslim community. After this, several FIRs were registered against Yeti Narasimhanand in Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra for inciting communal hatred and hurting religious sentiments.
The Ghaziabad police then charged Zubair under sections 196 (promoting enmity on religious grounds), 228 (fabricating false evidence), 299 (hurting religious feelings by insulting religion or religious beliefs), 356 (3) (defamation) and 351 (2) (criminal intimidation) of the BNS. Later, the offense under section 152 of the BNS was also added.
Against this, Zubair had filed an application in the Allahabad High Court for amendment in his writ petition. In that petition, Zubair had challenged the FIR registered against him on October 8, 2024. He had filed the petition after Ghaziabad Police added Section 152 of the BNS in the FIR.
No comments:
Post a Comment