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HC refuses to quash FIR against Mohammed Zubair, extends arrest protection
The Allahabad High Court on Thursday refused to quash the first information report (FIR) filed against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair for a social media post criticising Hindu priest Yati Narsinghanand. However, it extended Zubair's interim protection from arrest—first granted in December 2024—until a chargesheet is filed, Bar and Bench reported.
A division bench of Justices Siddhartha Varma and Yogendra Kumar Srivastav directed Zubair to continue cooperating with the investigation. The court rejected his plea to quash the FIR, which stems from an October 2024 complaint by Udita Tyagi, General Secretary of the Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati Foundation. Tyagi alleged that Zubair's post on X incited violence by sharing an old video of a controversial speech delivered by Narsinghanand.
Charges against Zubair
The Ghaziabad Police FIR invokes multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), including charges for:
Promoting enmity between religious groups
Criminal intimidation
Endangering the sovereignty and integrity of India (under Section 152)
Tyagi's complaint links Zubair's post to protests that occurred outside the Dasna Devi Temple, where Narsinghanand had been taken into custody after making inflammatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad in a September 2024 speech.
Zubair has denied the allegations, telling the court his post was intended to highlight repeated hate speech by Narsinghanand—not incite violence. He called the FIR a retaliatory move designed to silence his journalistic work.
Context: Previous arrests and legal battles
The case has drawn widespread attention, adding to the growing legal scrutiny surrounding Zubair's online activity.
In 2022, the Supreme Court granted Zubair bail in several FIRs filed across Uttar Pradesh, and ordered the disbanding of a state-level Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up to probe similar accusations linked to his social media posts.
The Allahabad High Court has, in past hearings, criticised Zubair for sharing alleged hate speech on social media rather than formally reporting it, warning that such actions could inflame communal tensions.
Despite these warnings, the present case marks a new legal challenge under the BNS, the country's recently enacted criminal code, adding a fresh layer to the debate over digital journalism and freedom of expression in India.
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