Rana Ayyub granted four weeks' protection from arrest in Ghaziabad assault video FIR

The Bombay High Court on Monday granted journalist Rana Ayyub protection from arrest for four weeks in the FIR registered by the UP police over a tweet featuring a viral video of a Muslim man in Ghaziabad being assaulted.

Justice PD Naik said that four weeks' temporary protection would be granted to Ayyub while she approached the relevant court to seek appropriate relief. He further said that in the event of an arrest, Ayyub could be released on executing a PR Bond of Rs 25,000 with one or more sureties.

Arguing for Ayyub, advocate Mihir Desai told the court that Ayyub had deleted the tweet on June 16, a day after the FIR was registered and conflicting versions of the incidents emerged. He also pointed out that Ayyub had recently undergone a spinal surgery and that she was an award-winning journalist.

Mentioning that Ayyub had only made a tweet based on news reports, the advocate pointed out that no action was being taken against mainstream news organisations.

Besides Ayyub, the UP police has also named Twitter, Alt News cofounder Mohammad Zubair, journalist Saba Naqvi, news portal the Wire, and Congress leaders in its FIR for “provoking communal sentiments.”

Siddharth Varadarajan, cofounder of the Wire, told Newslaundry that the news organisation hadn’t decided the course of action to be taken regarding the FIR yet, and was still looking into the matter.