The Bombay High Court on Monday granted transit anticipatory bail to journalist Rana Ayyub for four weeks in connection with a case filed by Ghaziabad police over a tweet on the Loni assault incident in Uttar Pradesh.
The HC bench ordered that protection could be granted to Rana Ayyub so that the journalist is able to approach the court to seek relief.
“The applicant is seeking protection to enable the appropriate court for seeking appropriate relief in the FIRto enable the applicant to approach the court, a temporary period of four weeks can be granted,” the Bombay High Court order on Rana Ayyub’s plea read.
Journalist Rana Ayyub had approached the court on June 18 after the Uttar Pradesh Police named her in an FIR over Loni incident.
WHAT IS THE CASE?
The Ghaziabad Police had on June 15 booked eight, including journalists Mohammed Zubair and Rana Ayyub, besides three Congress leaders and writer Saba Naqvi.
They were booked over the circulation of a video in which the elderly Muslim man claimed he was allegedly thrashed by some young men on June 5 and asked to chant “Jai Shri Ram”.
The police, however, claimed the video was shared to cause communal unrest.
The June 15 FIR stated that the Ghaziabad Police had issued a statement with facts of the incident but, despite that, the accused did not remove the video from their Twitter handles.
The FIR was lodged under sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), 153A (promoting enmity between groups on ground of religion, class etc), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious belief) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
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