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Mohammed Zubair, a co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News
and vocal critic of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was
arrested after an anonymous Twitter user lodged a complaint over
the four-year-old post.
While granting Zubair bail, the judges stated that "power of
arrests must be pursued sparingly".
The court also stated that while investigations can continue,
there was no justification for keeping Zubair in custody.
Zubair's lawyer had earlier said the case bordered on the
absurd, because Zubair, a Muslim, had used satire from a
Hindi-language movie in his 2018 tweet and there was no evidence
that he had hurt religious sentiments of Hindus.
Zubair and his colleagues accused the federal government of
using the police to silence the voice of journalists and other
critics.
Earlier this year, Zubair had drawn attention to an incendiary
remark about Prophet Mohammad made on TV by a spokesperson for
Modi's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Zubair's lawyer said the government was using the 2018 case to
punish him after this year's tweet went viral.
The BJP suspended the spokesperson for anti-Islam remarks and
expelled another official to defuse domestic and international
diplomatic outrage.
India is ranked 150th on the 180-country World Press Freedom
Index, compiled annually by Reporters Without Borders.
(Writing by Rupam Jain; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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