The Uttar Pradesh Police on Tuesday formed a Special Investigation Team or SIT to probe cases against fact-checker Mohammed Zubair. The development comes on the day the Supreme Court extended the interim bail to the fact-checker in a case registered against him at Sitapur in UP.
The relief, however, is restricted to the Sitapur case and the proceedings against Mr Zubair, co founder of fact-checking website Alt News, in Delhi and Lakhimpur will remain unaffected. This means he will still be in jail.
The SIT has been asked for a speedy probe and submit a charge sheet in the court, Additional Director General (Law & Order) Prashant Kumar said.
The SIT will be headed by IG (Prison) Preetinder Singh.
Mr Zubair, who faces six police cases in UP, has FIRs registered against him across the state in Sitapur, Lakhimpur, Hathras and Muzaffarnagar.
In the Sitapur case, police have accused Mr Zubair of hurting religious sentiments and cited a tweet in May in which he termed as "hatemongers" Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati, Bajrang Muni and Anand Swaroop -- Hindu leaders accused of making provocative speeches.
In Lakhimpur case, the complaint has been filed by a Sudarshan News employee for a tweet by Mr Zubair last year. The tweet, says the complainant, misled people about Sudarshan channel's coverage of the Israel-Palestine dispute.
The fact-checker was first arrested by Delhi Police on June 27 over a four-year-old tweet, days after he flagged a video of now suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma's provocative remarks against Prophet Mohammed.
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