A Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Andheri, Mumbai, has ordered a 202 inquiry into the police arrest against Payal Rohatgi for his tweet from June 2020 in the context of the arrest of Jamia student Safora Zagar.
The court has observed that the tweets Prima Facely completely disregards Muslim women and the community.
Significantly, Metropolitan Magistrate Bhagwat Jirape said that every person has the right to practice his religion.
Actor Payal Rohatgi tweeted at a time when Safura Zargar (27), an MPhil student of Jamia Millia Islamia University, was jailed in the Delhi riots case. The tweet was in response to a post by a journalist who wanted to raise awareness about Zargar’s condition in prison, who was pregnant at the time. Zargar was later granted bail on humanitarian grounds.
Rohatgi’s tweet mentions the Quran, female genital mutilation, and tries to find out if there were no condoms at the medical shop.
Based on the tweet, lawyer Ali Qasif Khan Deshmukh approached the Amboli police to register an FIR for the first time. When the police refused to take cognizance of the complaint, Deshmukh approached the Andheri court in December.