The Bombay High Court on Monday granted protection from arrest for a period of four weeks to journalist Rana Ayyub in relation to the FIR filed by the Uttar Pradesh police over her tweet on the Ghaziabad Muslim man attack incident, Bar and Bench reported.
Besides the transit anticipatory bail, the court also ruled that, in the event of arrest, Ayyub can be released on a PR Bond of Rs 25,000, with one or more sureties, for a period of four weeks.
While observing that Ayyub is a recipient of the most resilient journalist award, a former editor of the Tehelka magazine, awarded Sanskriti award for excellence in journalism, along with being recognised among the top 10 global journalists by the Times magazine, the court also noted that she had deleted her tweet after learning the facts mentioned in the FIR.
The Ghaziabad Muslim Man Attack Incident
In a video that went on June 14, some Hindu men, including Pravesh Gujjar, are seen attacking an elderly Muslim man with wooden sticks, slapping him and forcibly chopping his beard off. The victim, 72-year-old Abdul Samad, said to NDTV that on June 5 the attackers abducted him from an autorickshaw and dragged him to a hut in a nearby forested area, where they reportedly shouted ‘Jai Shri Ram‘ and ‘Vande Mataram’ and forced him to chant the same as well.
But, the UP Police denied any communal angle in the case and said Samad was attacked by six men, both Hindus and Muslims, who were not satisfied with the amulets or tabeez he had sold them. Samad’s family, however, claimed that they were carpenters and denied any relation to the amulets business, according to The Wire.
The FIR lodged against the attackers did not mention any communal crimes despite Samad’s complaint mentioning it, The Wire reported.
The FIR on Ayyub and Others
Soon after the video went viral, several journalists, Congress leaders and media organisations, including Ayyub, Mohammad Zubair, co-founder of the fact-checking website AltNews, Congress leaders Salman Nizami, Maskoor Usmani, Shama Mohamed, and writer Saba Naqvi and media organisation The Wire, tweeted on the issue and covered the news, based on which an FIR was registered by the UP police on June 15 against them and Twitter Inc and Twitter Communications India.
The FIR was registered under sections 153 (provocation for rioting), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups), 295A (acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 505 (mischief), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention).
It stated that despite UP police’s declaration of no communal angle in the violence, the accused spread false news without verifying it. It further charged that their tweets and news articles were posted with the intention of disturbing the peace and inciting communal differences.
A day after the FIR, Ayyub had written on Twitter that the tweets she had shared earlier about the attack on Abdul were “based on a video and various news reports, published by print and electronic media, including the Indian Express, that were in wide circulation already. In view of the cops investigating the matter claiming a different narrative, I shall wait for the truth to prevail at the earliest. My endeavour remains as always to share news that highlights the truth and thereby promotes peace and harmony in our society. I hope the victim gets justice.”
The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday, in response to a petition filed by the co-founder of fact-checking website AltNews Mohammed Zubair, seeking transit anticipatory bail in the case, issued a notice to Zubair that his bail hearing will be heard on June 29, Live Law reported.
Zubair’s lawyer informed the court that following the bail plea, the UP Police had served Zubair a notice (under section 41A) seeking the latter’s presence before an investigating officer on June 28 to record his statement in relation to the FIR. The police said they do not intend to arrest Zubair, as the sections mentioned in the FIR are punishable for less than seven years of imprisonment.
Meanwhile, on June 17, the Delhi Police also received a complaint against Hindi actor Swara Bhaskar, Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari, and others, at the Tilak Marg Police Station regarding their tweets over the same incident.
However, there has been no FIR or complaint registered against any other news portals that carried the same piece of news such as The Indian Express, News18, First Post, and others.
