A Delhi Court on Saturday granted bail to Delhi University’s Hindu College professor Ratan Lal, who was arrested on Friday over a social media submit on Gyanvapi Mosque. The Hindu College professor had questioned the validity of the videography survey that claimed the existence of a ‘Shivling’ contained in the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi.
Lal was produced earlier than a courtroom on Saturday afternoon the place his lawyer had put ahead his bail software. While granting bail, the courtroom ordered Lal to “strictly refrain from posting any social media posts or interviews” in reference to the Gyanvapi Mosque survey that resulted in his arrest.
The Delhi Police had requested for a 14-day judicial custody of Lal with the intention to additional examine the case. As the police counsel argued earlier than the courtroom that granting Lal bail would ship out a fallacious message and set a foul precedent, the Delhi Police defended its motion saying that they did all the pieces essential to cease the accused from committing any comparable offenses sooner or later.
Lal was arrested by the Cyber Police Station, North below sections 153A (selling enmity between completely different teams on grounds of faith, race, homeland, residence, language, and so on., and doing acts prejudicial to upkeep of concord) and 295A (deliberate act to outrage non secular emotions of any class by insulting its faith).
Advocate of Ratan Lal, Mehmood Pracha mentioned that the provisions below which Lal was charged didn’t empower the police officers to arrest him. “A false case was registered against him (Prof Ratan Lal). The FIR & complaint doesn’t mention one thing that can be termed as a cognizable offense. Despite that, arrests cannot be made u/s 153A & 295A IPC, police don’t have that power,” Pracha was quoted as saying by information company ANI.
“This arrest is also a contempt of the judgment by the Supreme Court… & a violation of section 3 in the Scheduled Castes & the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act… we will prove his innocence. More protests should happen,” added Pracha.
Earlier, Lal had defended his actions saying that he was entitled to his views. He even claimed that his 20-year-old son was being consistently threatened over Facebook Messenger after his tweet. “In India, if you speak about anything, someone or the other’s sentiment will be hurt. So this is nothing new. I am a historian and have made several observations. As I wrote them down, I have used very guarded language in my post and still this. I will defend myself,” mentioned Lal.
Source: www.financialexpress.com”