SHAFAQNA- India’s Supreme Court ordered the release on bail of a prominent journalist arrested last month over what police said was a “highly provocative” 2018 tweet aimed at straining ties between Hindus and Muslims.
Mohammed Zubair, a co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News and vocal critic of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was arrested after an anonymous Twitter user lodged a complaint over the four-year-old post.
While granting Zubair bail, the judges stated that “power of arrests must be pursued sparingly”. The court also stated that while investigations can continue, there was no justification for keeping Zubair in custody.
Zubair’s lawyer had earlier said the case bordered on the absurd, because Zubair, a Muslim, had used satire from a Hindi-language movie in his 2018 tweet and there was no evidence that he had hurt religious sentiments of Hindus.
Source: reuters