Rashid Siddiqui (left) and Vibhor Anand at the Cyber Cell police station in Bandra

Mumbai: YouTuber Rashid Siddiqui, a final-year civil engineering student from Bihar who was booked for uploading videos defaming environment and tourism minister Aaditya Thackeray and home minister Anil Deshmukh in connection with actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death case, was granted anticipatory bail by the sessions court last week.

Siddiqui (25), who owns FF News YouTube channel, is the third person against whom police have taken legal action for carrying out a malicious campaign by uploading fake news stories on Rajput’s death case.

Earlier, police had arrested Nagpur’s Sameet Thakkar and Delhi-based advocate Vibhor Anand for posting defamatory tweets about Maharashtra ministers and spreading conspiracy theories.

Siddiqui was booked in August after Shiv Sena’s legal cell advocate Dharmendra Mishra lodged an FIR against unknown persons under Indian Penal Code sections for defamation, public mischief and intentional insult.

While granting him anticipatory bail, the court directed Siddiqui to cooperate with the investigation and report to cyber police once a week.

In a series of videos, Siddiqui had made derogatory claims about the Maharashtra ministers as well as some actors.

Siddiqui’s lawyer J P Jaiswal said, “Rashid is a YouTuber and whatever videos he had uploaded were not made by him. He is not an investigator nor has he aired his own opinions. He has put question marks in all his videos and the information has been collected from various sources.”

Police investigations have suggested Siddiqui earned Rs 6.5 lakh by spreading fake news on social media in four months. “I have all the records with me. He earned a total revenue of Rs 15 lakh through subscription and advertisements from YouTube in three years,” said Jaiswal.

Rajput committed suicide in his Bandra flat on June 14.