New Delhi: Journalist Mohammed Zubair was on Monday sent to judicial custody for 14 days by a court in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri in a case registered against him in September for fact-checking a report carried by Sudarshan News about the Israel-Palestine dispute.
The court will hear his bail plea on July 13.
The complaint in the Lakhimpur Kheri case was filed by Ashish Kumar Katiyar, a journalist working with Sudarshan News.
He objected to a tweet posted by Zubair on May 16, 2021, pointing out that Sudarshan News had superimposed a fabricated image of the Al Masjid An Nabawi mosque in Medina on a picture of the Gaza strip to falsely portray that the mosque was being destroyed in an Israeli rocket attack.
The first information report was registered by the Lakhimpur Police against Zubair on September 18, 2021, after Katiyar approached a local court seeking directions for the same.
The action against Zubair was taken despite a FIR being filed against Sudarshan News on May 18 last year by Muslim organisation Raza Academy for using the doctored image in their broadcast, Newslaundry reported.
On May 20, the channel defended itself claiming that the doctored image was an example of “artistic freedom”.
In his complaint, Katiyar alleged that Zubair had made a fake claim on Twitter against Sudarshan News. Katiyar also alleged that Zubair had made an appeal to Muslims all over the world to create unrest and disrupt peace in India to create a “war-like situation”.
“However some Twitter users responded to accused no 1 [Zubair], following which he again posted anti-national content on May 15,” the complainant alleged.
The FIR in the case also named Twitter Inc and Twitter Communication as accused entities. Zubair will stay in judicial custody at a jail in Sitapur until July 25. On Monday, he attended court proceedings via video conference from the prison, Assistant Prosecuting Officer Avadhesh Yadav told PTI.
In 2020, the Supreme Court had said that Sudarshan News Editor-in-Chief Suresh Chavhanke was doing a “disservice to the nation” by airing a show that claimed to unveil an alleged conspiracy behind how Muslims have infiltrated the civil services.
Cases against Zubair
The action against the journalist in Lakhimpur Kheri was taken after he was first arrested by the Delhi Police on June 27 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through a tweet that he had posted in March 2018. Subsequently, the police also charged Zubair with criminal conspiracy, causing the disappearance of evidence and violating foreign funding norms.
Days later, the police in Uttar Pradesh wanted his custody for calling three Hindutva supremacists hatemongers in a tweet. Notably, all three of the seers – Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati, Bajrang Muni and Anand Swaroop – have been booked in hate speech cases in the past few months for making inflammatory statements about Muslims.
The action was taken based on a complaint by Bhagwan Sharan, who identifies himself as the district head of the Hindutva organisation Rashtriya Hindu Sher Sena.
On July 8, the Supreme Court granted the 39-year-old a five-day temporary bail in the case after his counsel informed the court that he was facing death threats. Though, he will remain in custody until he gets bail in the original case for which the Delhi Police have arrested him.
Soon after the interim bail verdict, the court in Lakhimpur Kheri issued a warrant summoning Zubair before it on Monday.
Several media organisations and Opposition leaders have criticised the Narendra Modi government, saying that Zubair’s arrest was “another low for press freedom in India”.
Courtesy: Scroll. In
