The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday granted bail to journalist Prashant Kanojia for allegedly posting a morphed photograph related to the Ram temple in Ayodhya, Bar and Bench reported. Kanojia will be released from custody on Thursday.
Kanojia’s wife Jagisha Arora confirmed the bail order. “My faith on the judiciary and Baba Saheb’s Constitution bore fruits,” she said.
Kanojia was arrested from his residence in South Delhi by the Uttar Pradesh police in August. An FIR was registered against him in Lucknow’s Hazratganj police station by a person named Dinesh Kumar Shukla, alleging that the journalist had tweeted a morphed image of a poster with the name of Sushil Tiwari, a member of the Hindutva group called the Hindu Army. In the FIR, Kanojia was charged for promoting enmity between two or more communities.
Kumar’s FIR claimed that Kanojia had allegedly posted the image and wrote that “as per Tiwari’s orders”, there will be a ban on the entry of members of the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes into the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Several activists and scholars had criticised the arrest, calling it “politically motivated and driven by vendetta”.
During the last hearing, the High Court had granted four weeks’ time to the state government to file its reply in the bail plea moved by Kanojia.
Last year, Kanojia was granted bail by the Supreme Court after he was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police for tweets against Chief Minister Chief Minister Adityanath.
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