Delhi Court ordered 14- day judicial custody for Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of Alt News

A Delhi court rejected Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair's bail plea in a case of promoting enmity among religious groups based on his 2018 tweet. However, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarvaria accepted the Delhi Police's plea to send Zubair to 14-day judicial custody.

In this instant case, a case was filed against Zubair based on a complaint from a Twitter handle called Hanuman Bhakt alleging Zubair of spreading animosity and hurting religious sentiments from his 2018 tweet which was allegedly intended to deliberately insult a Hindu God. The Delhi Police arrested Zubair on 27 June and were remanded for a day by the duty magistrate.

On 28 June, he was produced before the CMM wherein, he was remanded to further police custody for four days.

Initially, Zubair was booked for offenses under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups) and 295 (injuring or defiling a place of worship, with intent to insult the religion of any class) of the IPC. Subsequently, provisions of FCRA along with Sections 201 (destruction of evidence) and 120b (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC were added.