The Allahabad High Court on Friday, December 20, granted interim protection from arrest to fact checker Mohammed Zubair in a case against him for a post on X, formerly Twitter, criticising the Dasna Devi priest Yati Narsinghanand, for his “derogatory and hateful” speech.
After Mohammed Zubair shared Narsinghanand’s speech, criticising him, on Twitter, the Uttar Pradesh police booked him for endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India under Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
The bench of justice Siddhartha Varma and justice Nalin Srivastava directed the state government to respond to Zubair’s plea for protection from arrest in the case preventing any action against the Alt News journalist until the next hearing on January 6, 2025.
Mohammed Zubair’s tweet and FIR
The FIR was lodged against Zubair following a complaint by Yati Narsinghanad’s followers who stated that Mohammed Zubair had shared an old video of the hate-mongering accused priest “with the intent to incite violence against him.”
On October 3, Zubair shared a video of Narasinghanand, delivering an alleged Islamophobic public speech, where he made remarks against Prophet Muhammad. Following Zubair’s post, several cases were booked against Narsinghanand across Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Telangana for communal hatred and hurting religious sentiments.
The FIRs were followed by protests at the Dasna Devi Temple and Narsinghanand was reportedly detained by the cops.
After the FIR, Mohammed moved the High Court seeking protection from arrest and quashing of the case against him. The plea stated that the FIR was a malicious attempt to stop him from exposing the hate monger’s criminal activities while he only aimed to shed light on Yati’s repeated communal and derogatory remarks against women and senior politicians.
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