Mohammad Zubair was evasive, phone was formatted: Delhi Police
DCP KPS Malhotra, who heads the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit of the Delhi Police, said that Zubair was being evasive when questioned by personnel about some objectionable tweets.
FollowThe Delhi Police on Tuesday broke its silence on the circumstances that led to the arrest of journalist Mohammad Zubair for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.
DCP KPS Malhotra, who heads the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit of the Delhi Police, said that Zubair was being evasive when questioned by personnel about some objectionable tweets.
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The officer said that Zubair's tweet triggered a Twitter storm with hate remarks that were detrimental to communal harmony. The questioning was centred around two aspects -- the technical gadgets and the intention behind the post. The fact that his phone was formatted formed the grounds for his arrest.
While asserting that the police action was taken after the matter came to their cognizance, the officer warned that responsibility for endorsing a view on Twitter lies with the individual.
He said, "When a view is endorsed on social media, that becomes your view as well. One can't retweet a remark and claim ignorance. "Timing does not matter; it becomes a new Tweet when an individual re-Tweets it," Malhotra said.
Stating that due legal procedure was followed, the DCP said the fact that the judiciary sent Zubair to custody rather than granting him bail showed that there is some substance to the case. "Calling this politically motivated is incorrect. If someone has been booked in several cases, the police have the right to question him on all those cases," the officer said.
Earlier in the day, the Press Club of India and the Editors' Guild sought the release of Zubair. The Press Club, in a statement, said that the hasty action taken by the Delhi Police showed a blatant violation of the country's commitment to 'Freedom of Expression' given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G7 summit.
Zubair was charged with hurting religious sentiments and promoting enmity for a post in which he shared a clip from filmmaker Hrishikesh Mukherjee's 1983 classic 'Kissi Se Na Kehna'. The image in the post shows a hotel board that reads 'Hanuman Hotel' in Hindi. The paint marks on the board suggest that it was earlier called 'Honeymoon Hotel'. Zubair, in his Twitter post, commented: 'Before 2014: Honeymoon Hotel, After 2014: Hanuman Hotel'.
The Delhi Police, in its FIR, claimed that Zubair's post was 'highly provocative' and 'sufficient to incite the feeling of hatred'.
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