Hyderabad: After languishing in jail for months for retweeting a post on PM Narendra Modi, Hyderabad-based freelance journalist Hassan Moiuddin Siddiqui has been granted bail, said reports on Monday, August 10.
Siddiqui was arrested by the Punjab Police this April for allegedly retweeting a video posted by academician Madhu Kishwar. The post allegedly claimed that a man getting a facial massage was Modi. The accompanying post also allegedly claimed that US intelligence agencies had the PM’s compromising videos in their possession.
Earlier bail applications rejected
His bail applications were rejected till as recently as the end of July, when a Chandigarh court held that the allegations against Siddiqui were serious and said that granting him bail could disturb public order.
Police said the content Siddiqui reshared was provocative and capable of disturbing communal harmony and public order. The prosecution also submitted that the technical investigation had linked the social media account and mobile number used for the post to Siddiqui.
The court said that the filing of the chargesheet alone could not be treated as a fresh ground for granting bail, particularly when the allegations involved content allegedly capable of affecting public peace.
Siddiqui was arrested in connection with an FIR registered at Chandigarh’s Sector 26 Police Station under several provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Information Technology Act.
