The Delhi High Court, on Thursday, sought a status report from the Delhi Police on the investigation in the FIR registered against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair over his August 2020 tweet.
The court, which was hearing Zubair’s plea seeking to quash the FIR, also extended the interim protection from arrest that was earlier granted to the journalist in September 2020. The case has been adjourned to May 17.
On August 6, 2020, in response to a now-deleted abusive comment on one of his fact-check tweets, from a Twitter user named Jagdish Singh, Zubair had tweeted the latter’s profile picture with his granddaughter and said, “Hello Jagdish Singh, does your cute grand daughter know about your part time job of abusing people on social media? I suggest you change your profile pic.” Zubair had, however, blurred out the face of the little girl in the image he shared.
Singh retaliated by filing multiple complaints against the journalist, accusing him of cyber sexual harassment of his granddaughter as well as offences under IPC section 509B (insult the modesty of a woman) and sections 67 and 67A of the IT Act (publishing or transmitting obscene and sexually explicit content).
Apart from Zubair, two other Twitter accounts – de_real_mask and syedsarwar20 – were also named in the FIR since they had commented on the same post. These two profiles have since been permanently suspended by Twitter.
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On August 8, 2020, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) received a complaint from an organisation called Forum for Indigenous Rights – North-East India. The commission then wrote to the Deputy Commissioner of the Delhi Police and the nodal Cyber Cell officer, seeking action against Zubair.
Further, two more FIRs were lodged against Zubair in Delhi and Raipur, under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act for allegedly “threatening and torturing a minor girl” on Twitter.
Recently, in September 2021, the NCPCR also moved the Delhi High Court against Twitter’s refusal to remove Zubair’s tweet with the picture of the girl.