"un-informed comments ", MEA dismisses remarks by German foreign ministry over arrest of Mohammed Zubair pic.twitter.com/vLsjxL3CJZ
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) July 7, 2022
India has reacted sharply to Germany expressing concern over journalist Zubair Ahmed’s detention for a 2018 tweet that allegedly hurt religious sentiments. He is accused of violating the country’s law on religious harmony.
Zubair is co-founder of Alt-News, a fact-checking site. Zubair was arrested after he highlighted controversial remarks by spokespersons of India’s ruling party, which attracted global attention. India has denied this and said the journalist’s arrest is a domestic issue.
“Let me emphasize that there is a judicial process underway in this case,” Arindam Bagchi of India’s foreign ministry said, adding that he did not think it would be appropriate for him “or anyone else” to comment on the matter.
“The independence of our judiciary is well recognized and uninformed comments are unhelpful and should be avoided,” he added. (dw.com)
Meanwhile, wire.in reports, a local court in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur on Thursday, July 7, sent Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair to police custody from July 8 to July 14 in connection with his tweet where he called Hindu religious leaders, facing charges of hate speech, “hate mongers”.
Zubair is currently in judicial custody after the court sent him to 14-day judicial custody on July 5.
