Delhi Police invokes additional charges against fact-checker Muhammed Zubair

New Delhi, July 2 (IANS) Delhi Police has invoked additional charges against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, who is facing a trial in Patiala House Court on Saturday, in connection with a 2018 contentious tweet.The new charges are under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of Indian Penal Code(IPC) and Section 35 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act.Earlier, Zubair was charged under the IPC's Sections 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence) and 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) for one of his objectionable tweets."Transmission and publication of such posts have been deliberately done by Mohammed Zubair through electronic media to insult the religious feelings of a particular community with the intent to provoke breach of peace," read the FIR.As per the FIR, accused Zubair had used a screengrab of an old Hindi movie which showed an image of a hotel, with its board reading 'Hanuman hotel' instead of 'Honeymoon hotel'. In his tweet, Zubair had written, "BEFORE 2014: Honeymoon Hotel. After 2014: Hanuman Hotel".The Delhi High Court on Friday issued notice to the Delhi Police on a plea moved by Zubair challenging the Patiala House court order allowing his police custody and seizure of his laptop in connection with the 2018 contentious tweet.
--IANS jw/kvd/svn/

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