No Criminality Found in Zubair's Tweet That Attracted POCSO Case, Police Tells Delhi HC
New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Thursday, January 5, told the Delhi high court that "no criminality was found" in the tweet posted by fact-checker Mohammed Zubair, for which a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) was registered against him earlier.
According to LiveLaw, the counsel for Delhi Police, Nandita Rao, also informed the court that Zubair was not named in the chargesheet filed in connection with the first information report (FIR).
The instant POCSO case relates to an August 2020 tweet posted by Zubair with the profile picture of a user who had criticised him on the social media platform using profane language. Zubair asked the user if it was appropriate for him to use derogatory language in replies while using a profile picture of his granddaughter. In the picture that Zubair shared, he blurred the face of the minor girl.
“Hello Jagdish Singh. Does your cute grand daughter know about your part time job of abusing people on social media? I suggest you to change your profile pic (sic),” Zubair wrote.
The user in question then approached the Delhi Police against Zubair, accusing him of cyber sexual harassment against his granddaughter. An FIR was registered against Zubair under Section 12 (punishment for committing sexual harassment upon a child) of the POCSO Act, Section 509B (sexual harassment by electronic mode) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and Sections 67 (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) and 67A (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act) of the Information Technology Act were invoked against Zubair.
The Delhi Police in May 2022 had informed the court that no cognisable offence was made out against Zubair in the case.
However, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) later argued that the information provided by the police in its status report showed that Zubair was trying to evade the investigation and was not fully cooperating. However, Zubair was granted interim protection from arrest by the court on September 9, 2020.
The Delhi high court has now listed the matter to be heard on March 2 and asked the police to place the chargesheet on record.
The Alt News co-founder was arrested in late June last year by the Delhi police for a 2018 tweet in which he posted a screenshot from a 1983 Hindi movie. While he was incarcerated, six more cases were slapped against him.
He walked out of jail in July after the Supreme Court granted him bail, observing that the practice of repeated charging and arresting was a “vicious cycle”.
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