HC grants transit pre-arrest bail to 'Tandav' director others

    (Eds: Adding observations of the High Court)
    Mumbai, Jan 20 (PTI) The Bombay High Court on
Wednesday granted a transit pre-arrest bail to 'Tandav'
director Ali Abbas Zafar, Amazon Prime India head Aparna
Purohit, producer Himanshu Mehra and the show's writer Gaurav
Solanki, against whom a case was registered in Lucknow for
allegedly hurting religious sentiments through the web series.
    Justice P D Naik granted the relief to the four for a
period of three weeks to enable them to approach the concerned
court at Lucknow where the FIR was registered against them.
    The HC, while granting the interim relief, noted that
the producers of the web show are in the process of deleting
the objected portion to avoid further controversy.
    Lawyers Aabad Ponda and Aniket Nikam, who represented
Zafar and others, told the high court that the four require
some time to approach the concerned court in Lucknow for a
pre-arrest bail and hence require an interim relief from
arrest.
    "The (four) applicants are innocent and have been
wrongly implicated in the offences," the transit anticipatory
bail plea said.
    Ponda and Nikam argued that a team of the Uttar
Pradesh police had arrived in Mumbai to arrest the four and
hence the protection from arrest was required.
    "Since the proceedings are pending in Lucknow, without
adjudicating on merits, to enable the applicants (Zafar and
others) to approach the competent court for seeking
appropriate reliefs, the applicants are granted relief," the
HC said in its order.
    Earlier in the day, a four-member team of Uttar
Pradesh Police arrived in Mumbai to conduct a probe into the
case registered in Lucknow against "Tandav", an official said.
    The UP Police team is likely to record statements of
the makers and cast and crew of the Amazon Prime Video's
series, which has been accused of hurting religious sentiments
for its depiction of Hindu deities.
    The four have been booked under sections 153 A
(promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of
religion, race and so on), 295 (injuring or defiling place of
worship with intent to insult the religion of any class), 501
(1)(B) (public mischief with intent to cause fear or alarm) of
the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under relevant sections of the
Information Technology Act.
    They approached the high court on Wednesday.
    At least three FIRs have been lodged against the
makers and artists of "Tandav" in Uttar Pradesh - at Lucknow,
Greater Noida and Shahjahanpur - for alleged inappropriate
depiction of UP Police personnel, deities, and adverse
portrayal of a character playing prime minister in the show.
    "Tandav", a nine-episode political thriller starring
Bollywood A-listers Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia and Mohd
Zeeshan Ayyub, started streaming last week. PTI SP
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)