Journalists rely on Delhi cop to report falsely on Zubair’s bail hearing

As a Delhi court was wrapping up the custody and bail hearing of Mohammed Zubair on Saturday, journalists, media organisations as well as news agency ANI reported that the Alt News journalist had been denied bail. The source appeared to be KPS Malhotra, head of the Delhi police’s cyber crime division.

It soon turned out that this “breaking news” was incorrect. The court hadn’t yet made the ruling, which is scheduled for 4 pm.

One of the journalists who tweeted the news flash subsequently said that Malhotra had “misheard” what had happened in the court “due to noise and inadvertently the message was posted in the broadcast”.

Zubair was arrested on June 27 and charged with hurting religious sentiments after an anonymous tweeter known as Hanuman Bhakt complained that a satirical post made by the journalist four years ago and referencing a trope from a 1983 film was a “direct insult of Hindus”. He has been in the Delhi police’s custody since. An investigation by the Wire found that Hanuman Bhakt could be connected to Vikas Ahhir, head of the Hindutva groups Hindu Yuva Vahini and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in Gujarat.

Ahead of Saturday’s hearing on his custody as well as bail pleas, the police slapped new charges on Zubair related to criminal conspiracy; destruction of evidence, apparently for deleting some of his tweets; and violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, purportedly for helping raise funds for the mostly Muslim families in Madhya Pradesh and Delhi whose homes were ebulldozed by police in the wake of communal violence in recent months.