Journalist Mohammed Zubair on Wednesday evening walked out of Delhi’s Tihar jail, twenty-three days after he was arrested for his tweets against BJP government, Hindu nationalism and hate-mongers.
India’s one of the prominent fact-checkers walked out of jail at 9 pm and showed a victory sign as he sat inside a waiting car.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted interim bail to journalist Mohammed Zubair in all the six cases filed against him in Uttar Pradesh.
A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna observed that the existence of the power of arrest must be pursued sparingly. The top court directed the police to release Zubair by 6 pm, subject to furnishing of bail bonds.
The judges said there is “no justification” to keep Zubair in further custody and subject him to an endless round of proceedings in various courts.
“He [Zubair] has been subjected to a fairly sustained probe by the Delhi Police and we don’t find a reason for his deprivation of liberty to persist further,” the court said.
Later in the day, a court in Delhi issued release warrants in seven cases filed against Zubair in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, his counsel Soutik Banerjee said. Duty Magistrate Amardeep Kaur issued the warrants after the lawyer filed bail bonds in all the cases.
First case was filed in New Delhi in connection to a tweet that Zubair had posted in 2018. He was granted bail in this case on July 15.
Later, one case each has been filed against Zubair in the districts of Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Muzaffarnagar and Ghaziabad and two in Hathras.
