New Delhi: The co-founder of Alt News Mohammed Zubair, who has spent five days in police custody, has been sent to fourteen days of judicial custody by a Delhi court today.
Earlier today, the fact-checker’s counsel Vrinda Grover had appealed for Zubair’s bail petition. But not only has he been denied the same but has been sent for a two-week judicial custody.
However, the most significant part remained during the hearing that even before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Sarvaria could announce the judgment, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Delhi KPS Malhotra told the media that Mohammed Zubair has been denied bail by the court and sent to 14-day judicial custody.
The fiasco took place soon after CMM reserved the order. The leak raised serious questions.
According to a PTI report, the DCP later said that he had been incorrectly informed by the media that Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair had been sent to a 14-day judicial custody even before the court pronounced its order.
Zubair was arrested by Delhi police on June 27, when he was called for another case but arrested in a different one. He was arrested allegedly for hurting religious sentiment and promoting enmity through his tweet made in 2018. On the same day sent to one day of police custody. Later, he was sent to another four days of police custody, which ended today.
But special public prosecutor Atul Srivastava appearing for Delhi police told the court that fresh charges- Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offense) of Indian Penal Code and Section 35 of Foreign Contribution Regulation) Act have been added against Zubair.
Significantly, today The Wire in its investigation uncovered the existence of a network of 757 Twitter accounts that were used to mount coordinated attacks against Alt News.
It mentioned that anonymous complainants targeting Zubair’s Tweet linked to Tek Fog App, BJYM leader in Gujarat.
It should be noted, that today the same Twitter handle of BJYM leader Vikash Ahir is now running a Twitter campaign to Arrest Pratik Sinha, another co-founder of Alt News.
