AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair on Thursday told the Supreme Court that police had devised a strategy to intimidate “secular persons” by implicating in “communal crimes” those protesting hate speeches.
Zubair’s submission came in a petition challenging an FIR registered against him in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, for tweeting about alleged hate mongering by certain Hindu religious leaders.
He has been booked for outraging religious feelings and making lascivious statements.
“There is a new strategy afoot of the police in communal crime cases. That is to register FIRs against those engaging in hate speech and communal crimes, as well as to rope
in all secular elements monitoring such crimes and protesting police inaction against the wrongdoers,” his petition said.
The petition said: “This is done with the intention of stifling freedom of speech of secular persons in society who stand up against communal elements and to put fear into them so that they no longer protest.”
The petition asked the top court “to nip it (the strategy) in the bud so that secular social activism continues on its path”.
The bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and J.K. Maheshwari, before which the matter was mentioned for urgent listing by senior advocate Colin Gonzalves, agreed to take it up on Friday, subject to clearance from the Chief Justice of India.
Allahabad High Court had on June 10 dismissed Zubair's plea for quashing the FIR, prompting him to approach the Supreme Court.
According to Zubair, he had tweeted on May 27 accusing the Times Now channel of “promoting hate speech and tagged Vineet Jain (@vineetjaintimes) seeking his response on comments made by a BJP spokesperson which could incite violence”.
The allusion was to Nupur Sharma's remarks on Prophet Mohammed.
The tweet read: “Well done @vineetjaintimes! Why do we need Hate Mongers like Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati or Mahant Bajrang Muni or Anand Swaroop to arrange Dharam Sansad to speak against a community and Religion when we already have anchors who can do much better job from news studios."
The FIR was registered after a complainant accused Zubair of insulting Hindu leaders by branding them "hate mongers".
Delhi High Court is yet to hear Zubair's plea seeking the quashing of an FIR against him in Delhi over a 2018 tweet. Delhi police have booked him for charges ranging from promoting enmity between religions and outraging religious feelings to foreign contribution violations.
Police custody
A court in Sitapur has sent Zubair to the custody of Uttar Pradesh police till July 14, PTI reported.
Zubair was brought to Sitapur from Delhi's Tihar jail on Thursday afternoon amid tight security. Earlier, he had been brought on July 4 and the court had sent Zubair to 14 days' judicial custody.
Zubair's advocate Mukul Mishra told reporters that while he was in custody under Section 295A of the IPC and Section 66 of the IT Act, the police added Section 153A of the IPC on Thursday.
Later, the police submitted another application seeking remand, claiming the mobile phone Zubair had used to upload the tweet was still in Bangalore, Mishra said. The court has granted the state police his custody from July 8 to 14, Mishra added.
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