On Thursday, Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of leftist propaganda portal Alt News moved to the Delhi High Court challenging the police remand granted by the Patiala House Court to the Delhi Police Special Cell. The Court sent him to four days of Police remand after it noted that he was to be taken to his Bengaluru residence for further investigations.
Alt News co-founder Mohd Zubair moved Delhi HC challenging the police remand granted by Patiala House Court to the Delhi Police Special Cell.
— ANI (@ANI) June 30, 2022
His lawyer mentioned the matter before Delhi HC’s vacation bench today. The mentioning was allowed and the matter will be heard tomorrow. https://t.co/qrl23ZRMqG
Reportedly, the Delhi Police Special Cell flew Zubair to Bengaluru to recover his laptop and other electronic devices which he used for uploading objectionable posts on social media platforms. According to the reports, Zubair earlier had refused to hand over his electronic devices and had formatted them. The Police said that despite repeatedly asking for the devices, Zubair had refused to hand his devices over to the Police.
One can see visuals of police escorting Zubair at his residence in Bengaluru.
The Police stated that Zubair was deliberately using religion to outrage a religious group. “He was doing this to gain popularity,” the police was quoted. The Delhi Police Special Cell also added that Zubair was acting evasive and was not cooperating with the Police officials.
Earlier in the Delhi High Court, Zubair through his counsel Vrinda Grover had refused to hand over his laptop and other electronic items to the Police saying that his laptop and his phone storage were his personal things. “They want my laptop only to harass me, only because I have been challenging what certain people have been saying, and some of those people are in power,” he had argued.
The Delhi Police Special Cell who flew Zubair to Bengaluru today stated that after recovering Zubair’s laptop, it will be sent for forensic examination at CFSL, Rohini. The Police also said that they will try to access the hard disk memory of Zubair’s laptop and will check edited posts posted by him on social media.
Notably, from June 27 to June 29, 100 tweets went missing from the Twitter account (@zoo_bear) of the co-founder of the propaganda website AltNews, Mohammed Zubair. 88 of the 100 tweets went missing on June 28 when Zubair was in Police custody. Earlier on June 20, he had deleted 28 tweets.
While seeking remand, Delhi Police categorically said that Zubair had deleted electronic evidence and presented a blank phone when asked to produce the electronic devices. It is virtually not possible for Zubair to access any electronic device while in Police custody, and it is unclear how the tweets were deleted from his account and by whom.
BIG: Md Zubair DELETED 101 tweets in the last 3days, (88 on 28-Jun only).
— The Hawk Eye (@thehawkeyex) June 29, 2022
On 20th Jun he deleted at least 28 tweets (below SS)
With NO access to gadgets under police remand, how its possible? Who did it? Isn’t a clear case of evidence tampering?
Attn- @DelhiPolice @CPDelhi
6/ pic.twitter.com/8RP71GUp5q
Mohammed Zubair was arrested on June 28 by the Delhi Police for hurting religious sentiments via derogatory social media posts targeting Hinduism. He was booked under Sections 153A and 295 of the Indian Penal Code. The FIR was based on a tweet by Twitter user @balajikijaiin where the user had shared a screenshot of an old tweet by Zubair in which he had mocked Lord Hanuman. In the tweet, @balajikijaiin had tagged the Delhi Police and had asked them to take action against Zubair for hurting the sentiments of Hindus with his derogatory post against Lord Hanuman.
