Alt News’ Mohammad Zubair released from Tihar after SC grants bail

Twenty-four days after his arrest, Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair walked free from Tihar jail on Wednesday night, within hours of the Supreme Court granting him interim bail in all FIRs lodged in Uttar Pradesh for alleged hate speech, saying “exercise of the power of arrest must be pursued sparingly”.

The court said it finds “no reason or justification for the deprivation of his liberty to persist any further”, ordered the disbanding of the SIT constituted by the Uttar Pradesh police and directed the transfer of all UP cases to Delhi.

A bench of justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and AS Bopanna also refused to restrain Zubair from tweeting in the future as sought by the UP government, saying can a lawyer be restrained from arguing.