Guwahati: Fact checker and journalist Mohammed Zubair was sent to police custody for four more days by a Delhi Court.
Zubair who is the co-found of fact-checking website, Alt News was arrested in connection with a post that he tweeted four years ago.
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The police had sought his custody for five days arguing that he is a”serial offender” and needed to be interrogated in other similar cases too.
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His lawyer, Vrinda Grover told the court that the tweet in connection with which he was arrested is merely an image from a 1983 movie cleared by the censor board.
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Referring to Zubair being a Muslim and a journalist, she said, “Many have tweeted the same, the only difference between those handles and mine is my faith, my name and my profession.”
The Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police arrested the journalist, who was summoned on Monday for questioning in a 2020 case.
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AltNews co-founder Pratik Sinha said Zubair was called to Delhi for questioning in a different case from 2020, in which the court has given him protection against arrest.
But he was arrested in this new case instead, without mandatory notice, Sinha said. “No FIR copy is being given to us despite repeated requests.”
Police acknowledged that Zubair was originally being questioned in an older case but was arrested in the new case “after having sufficient evidence on record”.