No court relief for trio who shared inflammatory video after Jharkhand lynching

A court here Wednesday rejected the anticipatory bail plea of three men accused of uploading an inflammatory video on TikTok after a lynching incident in Jharkhand.

Cyber police registered a first information report (FIR) against Hasnain Khan (21), Mudassir Shaikh (23) and Shadan Farooqui (23) earlier this month for allegedly indulging in hate-mongering by uploading the video.

The FIR was registered on the basis of a complaint filed by a Twitter user. Fearing arrest, the trio filed a pre-arrest bail plea before additional sessions judge D S Deshmukh last week.

Police opposed the plea saying that with the ubiquity of the Internet, the video could have fallen into anyone's hands and could have been misused.

Applicants' lawyer Ali Kaashif Khan argued that if the video hurt somebody's sentiments, then the FIR should have been registered against owners of the TikTok app.

The accused had in the past shared several videos on communal harmony, the fact suppressed by the police, he said.

The short video surfaced after the death of Tabrez Ansari in Jharkhand in June.

It purportedly showed some youths saying, "You may have killed that innocent Tabrez Ansari, but tomorrow if his son takes revenge, do not say that all Muslims are terrorists."