Court drops 'donate Quran' rider for conditional bail to Ranchi woman over 'communal' post

Ranchi, July 17: A court here on Wednesday modified its order asking a college girl, arrested for an offensive Facebook post, to donate copies of the Quran as a pre-condition for bail.

The court changing its order allowed her regular bail by furnishing a bail bond of Rs 7,000 and two sureties of like amount each.

Modifying Tuesday's order, Judicial Magistrate Manish Kumar Singh said the court has granted a petition filed by the investigating officer cum-officer-in- charge of Pretoria police station praying for doing away with the condition of donating copies of the Quran because of the difficulties in its implementation. The court retained its condition that one of the bailers should be a local resident of Ranchi district and another must be a relative of the petitioner.

Lawyers of the Ranchi civil court on Wednesday boycotted the court in protest against the order asking the girl to distribute copies of the holy book. They ended the boycott at 4 pm following the modification in the order.

The direction had evoked a huge outcry on social media, with the hashtag #RichaBharti trending on Twitter on Tuesday.

The 19-year-old was arrested on July 12 for allegedly sharing an offensive post on social media that reportedly hurt religious sentiments.

A complaint was filed by the Pithoria Anjuman committee for the post.