Alt News' Zubair denies before Delhi HC posting content to gain popularity

Alt News cofounder Mohammed Zubair who is being probed for posting an alleged objectionable tweet against a Hindu deity in 2018 denied before the Delhi High Court the claim of city police that he posted content that triggers religious sentiments to gain popularityZubair claimed that the Delhi police has attributed false and concocted theories to him in the name of disclosure statements which is a subversion of the rule of law and made a mockery of due process and the search and seizure from his residence were carried out with malafide reasonsFollowing a status report filed by the Delhi Police on the investigation in the case he claimed that he has not made any disclosure statement to the agency in relation to the recovery of certain devices and any such disclosure is wholly false wrong concocted and inadmissible in lawDelhi Police in its status report filed in September had told the court that during Zubairs police custody remand one laptop two invoices and a hard disk were recovered from his Bengaluru residence based on a disclosure statement that was admissible under the Indian Evidence Act and has to be looked upon at the time of trialThe status report was filed in response to a plea by Zubair against his arrest and search and seizure exercise in the caseIt is alleged that Mohd Zubair disclosed that the laptop and mobile phone used by him for posting the above content is at his residence It is categorically and completely denied as wrong false and concoctedIt is asserted that I did not make any such disclosure as the tweet in question dates back to 2018 and I clearly and specifically told the policeinvestigating officer that I no longer have the mobile phone device which I had been using in 2018 at my residence as the same was lost Zubair said in his affidavit in reply to the status reportThe statement attributed to me as a disclosure is manifestly wrong false and concocted to fabricate a nonexistent ground to unlawfully raid my residence and seize my laptop and hard disk which I use for my journalistic factchecking workThe said search and seizure from my residence was thus carried out with malafide reasons extraneous to the need for investigation he statedA series of false and concocted theories have been attributed to me as disclosures and the same are denied and rejected as false wrong concocted and baseless and I state that I did not make any such disclosure during the course of the investigation he saidZubair stated in the reply that he was a fact checker who posted content on social media to debunk misinformation and fake news and his work was not limited to any particular kind of postsI categorically and specifically deny that in order to gain popularity I post content that triggers religious sentimentsI am a fact checker and I post content on social media debunking fake news misinformation and disinformation of all kinds and my work is not limited to any particular kind of posts nor do I post content for popularity or any other material gain he assertedAlso Read Supreme Court to hear pleas challenging validity of CAA on December 6Zubair represented by lawyers Vrinda Grover and Soutik Banerjee submitted that the admissibility of the recoveries during the police investigation remains under contest as they are wholly illegal and all investigative steps premised on the purported disclosures including the search and seizure are inadmissibleThe actions of the investigating officer in creating false and concocted disclosure statements to sustain the investigation are a subversion of the rule of law and make a mockery of due processThat the purported have been prepared while I was in police custody without my knowledge and I have only learnt about the same from the status report dated 14092022 filed by the Respondent in the captioned proceedings the reply saidZubair had moved the high court earlier this year against the legality and propriety of a trial courts June 28 order granting his custody to police for four days in the caseAs an interim relief he prayed that till the petition is decided by the high court the police shall not venture into Zubairs laptop as the tweet was made through a mobile phone and not the computerOn July 1 the high court issued notice on Zubairs petition and granted time to the investigating agency to file its response to the pleaZubair was arrested by the Delhi Police on June 27 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through one of his tweets and was subsequently granted bail by the trial courtEarlier in June a case was registered against Zubair under sections 153A promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion race place of birth language etc and 295A deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings of the Indian Penal Code IPCPolice had said the case was registered on the complaint of a Twitter user who accused him of hurting religious sentimentsPolice while seeking an extension of Zubairs custody by five days had alleged before the trial court that the accused was following a trend where he used religious tweets in an effort to get famous and that there was a deliberate effort to create social disharmony and hurt religious feelingsThe investigating agency also said the accused joined the probe but did not cooperate and various materials from his phone were deletedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever