On October 31, following the raids on The Wire’s co-founders and editors Siddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu, and staffer Jahnavi Sen, Delhi Police seized electronic devices from the editors’ residence, including mobile phones and laptops.
#WATCH | Delhi: Visuals from outside the residence of ‘The Wire’ founder Siddharth Varadarajan where Delhi Police crime Branch searches are underway. https://t.co/aNVJ4co0YC pic.twitter.com/Yd6pGaZ6TK
— ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2022
In a statement, Delhi Police said that no notice was given to anyone and no inquiry took place on Sunday. The investigation is underway and necessary steps would be taken as required.
The raids sparked a reaction from the left-liberal section of the media. Urban Naxal-linked media association DIGIPUB News India Foundation has issued a statement condemning the raid. In its statement, DIGIPUB said that the media organisation that publishes a false report ought to be held accountable by its peers and civil society. However, “for the police to carry out an immediate and arbitrary search of the media house’s office and its editors’ homes, based entirely on a private complaint of defamation filed by a spokesperson of the ruling party, smacks of mala fide intentions. 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.”
Digipub’s statement on police searches on the homes of the editors and a reporter of The Wire pic.twitter.com/ewZCIZNL4C
— DIGIPUB News India Foundation (@DigipubIndia) November 1, 2022
It further said that such cases “cannot become a tool to further worsen the already fraught state of journalism in India, which has steadily declined in global indices of media freedom and democracy. We have witnessed numerous recent instances where criminal prosecution and harassment by the police have intimidated and prevented journalists from doing their jobs.”
While DIGIPUB categorically warned that such raids and “intimidation” of the journalist would affect India’s ranking in terms of press freedom, the Naxal-linked organisation completely missed the point that the raid happened at The Wire’s editors’ and report’s residence was not for the false stories but for the fraud The Wire has allegedly committed by fabricating documents which is a criminal offence.
In such cases, the police have to reach the root of the conspiracy, which in this case, involves everyone who is either directly associated with The Wire or the so-called “investigation” that The Wire did in the matter. As Siddharth not only took byline in the Meta reports, he categorically said he was involved throughout the “investigation”, it was obvious that the police would seize the devices that might have been used in the alleged crime of forgery, fabrication and defamation. As a matter of fact, it was their forgery in the name of reporting that had led to India’s rank falling.
It is also pertinent to note that while the Media association says that the investigation into The Wire’s fabrication and forgery would lead to India declining in press freedom and democracy indices, it was the forgery and fabrication that had led to India being downgraded in the first place.
Days after The Wire retracted its reports on the Meta story and ordered an “internal inquiry” into the fiasco, the leftist propaganda website also quietly pulled down its months-old reportage on Tek Fog, an app it claimed was used by the BJP to manipulate trends and automatically spew hate online.
Relying on an August 2020 tweet and some ‘source’, The Wire had claimed that the BJP was using one software named Tek Fog, led by BJP leader Devang Dave, that had unprecedented powers of manipulating online trends and churning out hate to attack its detractors. Even though Dave vigorously rejected the allegations in an email to Wire, they still proceeded to publish the story.
In the report published in January 2022, Wire claimed that the so-called Tek Fog app allowed BJP to ‘hijack’ the Twitter trends, allowed managing multiple WhatsApp accounts and direct online harassment of anti-BJP journalists. The report claimed that the app could bypass all kinds of security features that major social media platforms have. According to The Wire, Tek Fog had some kind of superpower that granted it capabilities that even the NSA of the USA did not have. The Wire alleged that hacking top apps like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp etc child’s play using Tek Fog, and all security features of those platforms vanish with this magical piece of software.
Freedom House, a dubious Human Rights ‘watchdog’ that supported violent protests against a law that gave citizenship rights to persecuted minorities like Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians from Islamic states neighbouring India, dropped the country from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’ in 2021. In 2022, too, the organisation maintained India as ‘partly free’, leaning on prejudiced reports and unfounded allegations, including The Wire’s story on Tek Fog (now taken down by The Wire), to claim that members of the BJP used it to shape public narratives and manipulate social media opinions.
Likewise, other organisations that have been pathologically averse to India, especially after Modi became the prime minister, cited the Tek Fog story as one of the examples to lower India’s ranking on their farcical indexes. Therefore, for Digi Pub to threaten and claim that India would be downgraded if it investigates the fabrication by The Wire, only seems like an arm-twisting tactic to protect a platform, that indulged in illegality, merely because they seem ideologically aligned.
DIGIPUB reissued the statement as the previous statement contained wrong Sections against The Wire
Interestingly, DIGIPUB’s statement that was issued on October 31 had mentioned wrong Sections imposed against The Wire based on Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT Cell Chief Amit Malviya. Several netizens pointed out the error, after which DIGIPUB deleted the previous statement.
The correct Sections imposed in the FIR based on the complaint by Malviya are cheating and dishonesty (section 420), forgery (section 468), forgery for the purpose of harming reputation (469), using a genuine a forged document or electronic record (471), punishment for defamation (500) r/w 120B and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
However, for some unknown reason, DIGIPUB published that Sections of cheating (Section 415), forgery (section 463), defamation (section 499), and criminal conspiracy (section 120A) under the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
Twitter users like Udit Kulshrestha mentioned the error in a Tweet thread.
Indian Penal code Sections quoted by @DigipubIndia shared by @dhanyarajendran and Amit Malviya’s complaint vary.
— Udit Kulshrestha (@uditkulshrestha) October 31, 2022
Digipub mentions
1. Sec 415
2. Sec 463
3. Sec 499
4. Sec 120A of the IPC.
While in the complaint:
1. Sec 420
2. Sec 468
3. Sec 469
4. Sec 471
5. 500 r/w 120B & 34 pic.twitter.com/u1FZ1VzbVm
Siddharth’s brother Tunku Varadarajan cried foul
The raids sparked a reaction from the left-liberal section of the media. Wall Street Journal writer and Siddharth’s brother Tunku Varadarajan said on Twitter, “The Delhi Police Crime Branch just searched the house of my brother Siddharth Varadarajan and seized his phone and 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.”
Just like DIGIPUB, Tunku also missed the point that his brother has committed a forgery and published fraudulent information to defame someone.
In a follow-up tweet, Tunku called the people of India to stand with The Wire and called the raids a “political motivated assault”. He further claimed if the people of India do not stand with The Wire, the same will happen to them tomorrow.
However, Tunku did not mention that the call he had been making was for the publication that used fabricated documents to defame a person from the party in power. Tunku, as well as DiGIPUB must explain how and why they are terming forgery, fraud and criminal conspiracy as “press freedom”.
One must not forget that the raids were not for defamation as per some leftist ‘intellectuals’ but for consistently indulging in forgery, cheating, fraud, fabrication, and criminal conspiracy. In fact, there is no civil defamation case against The Wire, Varadarajan, and others involved in the case. They face a criminal case for forgery, fabrication, and hatching a criminal conspiracy.
Even in face of contradictory evidence, and denial from independent experts, Varadarajan refused to budge and continued to place his faith in the Meta stories that have now been retracted by The Wire. At one point during the course of the Meta vs The Wire saga, Siddharth Varadarajan also claimed to have met the Meta sources himself when social media users and domain experts raised questions about The Wire’s story. All such statements by Siddharth and the retraction of the stories after the backlash deserve an in-depth investigation which is not possible without getting to the root of the conspiracy.
Siddharth’s wife, Nandini Sunder, claimed a ‘larger conspiracy’
Irked by the raids, Siddharth’s wife, Nandini Sunder, raised “concerns” about the possibility of a “larger conspiracy” behind the whole Meta Vs The Wire saga. In a tweet thread, she said, “It is not clear whether he was acting on his own or as part of a larger conspiracy.” Interestingly, she is one of many from the liberal cabal that has pointed towards a possibility of a “larger actor” behind the fiasco.
The Wire is a victim of criminal fraud by Devesh Kumar. it is not clear whether he was acting on his own or as part of a larger conspiracy. It is interesting that he was not named in Malviya’s complaint and FIR. The sequence of events is as follows
— N S (@nandinisundar) October 31, 2022
The investigation is not just about the “wrong story”
The liberal cabal is trying to insinuate that the complaint filed by Malviya and the raids that happened following the FIR based on Malviya’s complaint was made only because The Wire published a false story. They are suggesting that as The Wire has apologised, there is no need to file criminal charges against The Wire.
However, everyone from the cabal is missing one important aspect of the whole Meta Vs The Wire fiasco. The Wire and its associates have intentionally forged and used the documents. In an interview with the Platformer, Siddharth categorically said he was involved in the reports and that Devesh should not be the only one to be targeted. However, it seems after seeing things taking turns against them, they decided to throw Devesh under the bus.
It is noteworthy that under the Indian Penal Code, cheating, forgery, forgery for the purpose of harming reputation and defamation etc., are punishable offences. The FIR against The Wire includes all these charges that require investigation, and of course, the investigation into electronic documents cannot happen without checking the electronic devices of the accused.
