The Lakhimpur court on Monday sent Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair to 14-day judicial custody. A case was registered against Zubair in November last year on the charge of promoting enmity. The court will hear Zubair’s bail plea on July 13. Zubair is currently in judicial custody in Delhi.Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police on June 27 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets.On Friday, shortly after Zubair got an interim bail from Supreme Court on in a case registered in Sitapur for hurting religious sentiments, Lakhimpur Kheri police served him a warrant to appear in court.
The Supreme Court granted five-day interim bail to Zubair in connection with an FIR lodged against him in Sitapur district, but he would remain in custody as per the order of a Delhi court in another case. The court clarified that its interim bail order is with respect to the First Information Report(FIR) lodged in Sitapur and has nothing to do with a separate case registered against the journalist in Delhi.The top court also barred Zubair from posting anything on Twitter and said he shall not tamper with any evidence, electronics or otherwise. Mohammadi police station in-charge Ambar Singh said “a case against Zubair had been lodged by Ashish Katiyar, a reporter for a private news channel on November 25, 2021, by an order by a Kheri court.”“In his complaint, Katiyar had alleged Zubair of misleading people through his tweet about his channel,” he said.An FIR was lodged against Zubair in Uttar Pradesh under Indian Penal Code section 295A (deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings) and section 67 of the IT Act on a complaint by Hindu Sher Sena Sitapur district president Bhagwan Sharan on June 1.