A day after the Gujarat Police arrested flim-maker Avinash Das for tweeting a photo of Union Home Minister Amit Shah with arrested IAS officer Pooja Singhal, he was granted regular bail by an Ahmedabad court on Thursday, 21 July.
Das was reportedly detained by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch on Tuesday, when he was on his way to his office.
The photo of Shah and Singhal, which Das had shared on 8 May, was taken in 2017. However, as per the first information report (FIR) filed by the police, while sharing the picture on the microblogging platform Das had claimed that it was taken just a few days before 12 May, when Singhal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case, reported Scroll.
Police have alleged that Das, who made his directorial debut with the movie Anaarkali of Aarah had deliberately shared the photo with an intention of defaming the home minister.
Background
The flim-maker has also been booked for allegedly insulting the national flag, after he shared an altered photo of a woman wearing tricolour on his Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Accordingly, the Ahmedabad Crime Branch had booked the journalist-turned-director under Section 469 (forgery) of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act and the Information Technology Act.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Chaitanya Mandlik, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) said that Das has been a habitual spreader of fake news on social media.
"During the COVID-19 pandemic, he had posted a picture on social media where people were lying on the ground with the caption, ‘somewhere in Gujarat’. However, the picture taken at some other place. Likewise, he has posted many fake photos...We have also found a post where he described Hindu gods and goddesses in an obscene manner," Mandlik said.
In June, a sessions court had rejected Das' plea for anticipatory bail in the case.
Later, the Gujarat High Court also rejected his bail application while observing that Das had violated provisions of the Prevention of Insults to the National Honour Act by circulating a painting showing a person wearing a dress made of the tricolour. The Bombay High Court had also rejected Das' transit anticipatory bail plea.
(With inputs from Scroll, PTI.)
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