Delhi Police concocted statement to raid residence and seize laptop, hard disk: Mohammed Zubair to Delhi High Court

Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair told the Delhi High Court on Monday that Delhi Police and its investigating officer (IO) concocted the disclosure statement in the case concerning his 2018 tweet, to unlawfully raid his residence and seize laptop and hard-disk he was using for journalistic fact-checking work..Zubair said that he did not make any disclosure statement to the IO or any other police officer while he was in police custody or at any time during the investigation.Any such disclosure relied upon by the Police is wholly false, wrong, concocted, and inadmissible in law and therefore all consequent proceedings including search and seizure premised on the concocted and false disclosures are also illegal, Zubair argued..“I state that the actions of the investigating officer in creating false and concocted disclosure statements to sustain the investigation are a subversion of the rule of law and makes a mockery of due process. That the purported disclosures have been prepared while I was in police custody without my knowledge, and I have only learnt about the same from the status report dt. 14.09.2022 filed by the Respondent (Delhi Police) in the captioned proceedings,” he said. .Zubair has approached the Delhi High Court challenging a Patiala House Court order remanding him to police custody and the order permitting examination and seizure of his laptop.Delhi Police had filed a status report in the matter last month stating that Zubair's tweet where he shared an image from a 1983 Hindi movie was against a particular religious community and highly provocative.Police had said that Zubair disclosed to them that the laptop and mobile phone used by him for posting the tweet was at his residence in Bengaluru..However, the fact-checker refused the assertions made by the Delhi Police stating that he did not make any such disclosure as the tweet in question dates to 2018 and he had clearly and specifically told the police that he no longer had the mobile phone which he had been using then.The same had been lost and a lost article report was also filed with local police revealing the same, Zubair said.“Further, the tweet in question clearly states it was posted from an Android device (mobile phone), so it has no connection to any laptop.”.Zubair also denied the Police’s allegations that he posts content that triggers religious sentiments in order to gain popularity.“I am a fact checker and I post content on social media debunking fake news, misinformation and disinformation of all kind, and my work is not limited to any particular kind of posts, nor do I post content for popularity or any other material gain.”.Though the matter was listed for hearing today before single-judge Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, it was adjourned to March 9.Zubair is out on bail in the FIRs registered by the Delhi Police and the Uttar Pradesh Police with regard to the tweet.