An FIR against The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan has been reported by the UP Police for his tweet regarding a report on The Wire in which the family of a deceased farmer who died during a tractor rally alleged that police shot him dead.
Rampur DM replied to Varadarajan’s tweet and said, please, let’s adhere to the facts and facts only, denying the argument made by The Wire.
Taking one step further, under Indian Penal Code Sections 153-B and 505(2) the Rampur Police have registered an FIR against Varadarajan.
The FIR against Varadarajan came after the police have filed cases against six journalists in four separate states: India Today’s senior anchor Rajdeep Sardesai, senior consulting editor of the National Herald Mrinal Pande, editor, and publisher of the Caravan magazine Paresh Nath, its editor Anant Nath, and executive editor Vinod K Jose and Qaumi Awaz editor Zafar Agha. The sedition law was invoked in many of the cases, arguing that the tweets were meant to ‘instigate aggression’.
The FIRs have been widely criticized by media bodies, alleging they are designed to threaten and intimidate journalists.
This is the second case reported against Varadarajan by the UP police. The previous event, also for a tweet, was reported in April 2020 by the Ayodhya police.
