Delhi Police Searches Residences of The Wire Editors; Media Houses Condemn Act

BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya on Thursday, 27 October, said that he has decided to initiate criminal proceedings against The Wire.

(Photo: Meghnad Bose/The Quint)

Delhi Police on Monday, 31 October, conducted searches at the residences of news publication The Wire's editors Siddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia, and Jahnavi Sen.

Searches were conducted at The Wire's office as well. Delhi Police Spokesperson Suman Nalwa told The Quint that the police went to their residences for "investigation."

She added, "In view of all the calls being received, it is clarified that in The Wire case, investigation is being carried out and no arrests have been done."

DIGIPUB News India Foundation released a statement saying, "A journalist or media organisation that publishes a false report ought to be held accountable by its peers and civil society. But for the police to carry out immediate and arbitrary search of editors' homes, based entirely on a private complaint of defamation filed by a spokesperson of the ruling party, smacks of malafide intentions."

The statement added, "Moreover, the danger of these searches being used as an excuse to seize and duplicate confidential and sensitive data held by The Wire cannot be dismissed."

The Press Club of India also slammed the searches in a statement released on Tuesday, 1 November. The statement read, "It is surprising that even after the news portal issued a detailed retraction for its editorial lapses, putting out the same in the public domain, the Delhi police based on the complaint of the BJP leader which includes a bevy of charges, including criminal clauses under the IPC, registered an FIR and chose to proceed investigating the matter with uncharacteristic promptness."

Writer Tunku Varadarajan took to Twitter to say, "The @DelhiPolice Crime Branch just searched the house of my brother @svaradarajan & seized his phone & laptop. Why seize these when his publication has acknowledged/retracted a mistake? This seizure is repugnant in a democracy. Indians should raise their voices in fierce protest."

This development comes two days after Bharatiya Janata Party's IT Cell Chief Amit Malviya filed a complaint against the news portal and said that he'll initiate criminal proceedings against it.

Delhi Police field a First Information Report against the news organisation under Sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery purpose of cheating), 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), and 500 (criminal defamation) read with 120(B) and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The Wire had published a series of reports on Meta's XCheck programme and alleged that Instagram would take down any posts that Malviya flagged.

However, the news portal took down its reports on Meta and a previous reportage on TekFog after claims of "inauthencity" of the reports surfaced.

The Wire even filed a police complaint against researcher Devesh Kumar who had worked on these stories.