On October 29, The Wire filed a complaint against its ex-employee and one of the key actors in the Meta Vs The Wire saga, Devesh Kumar. In its complaint, The Wire claimed that it was Devesh who brought all the forged documents, including the Instagram PIR report on the post that was taken down, emails, communication with Instagram source and more. The founding editor of The Wire, Siddharth Varadarajan and its reporter Jahnavi Sen, who initially broke the story of an Instagram post critical of Yogi Adityanath being taken out, were shown innocent victims in the complaint.
Earlier on the same day, Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT Cell Chief Amit Malviya, who was blamed for the post takedown using his XCheck powers at Meta, had filed a complaint against The Wire, its editors and reporter. In his complaint, Malviya did not mention Devesh Kumar. An FIR was registered, and subsequently, a raid was conducted on the matter at The Wire’s editors’ residence.
After The Wire’s complaint against Devesh, a scenario was being built to whitewash the involvement of Siddharth and Jahnavi from the reports. The members of the left-liberal cabal were busy writing tweets and threads on Twitter providing their point of view on the matter and insinuating that The Wire was duped not only in the Meta fiasco but also in the Tek Fog stories that were published in January this year.
Following the raids, the attempts to clear the image of The Wire and its editors have increased exponentially. From calling it an attack on already fragile Indian Democracy and freedom of the press to making it look like a political agenda of the ruling party, BJP, every arrow in the quiver is being deployed for the purpose.
However, if we look at the statements made by Siddharth while The Wire was still defending its reports claiming a nexus between Meta and BJP, the story appears to be entirely different from what is being painted at the moment. These statements show that he was complicit in the alleged conspiracy, and blaming Devesh for everything would not cut it.
Though some tweets, along with the reports, were deleted by Siddarth, some important tweets are still on Twitter, where he himself confessed to being completely involved in the story and verification process.
In the complaint, The Wire claimed that all the electronic documents, verification, etc., were provided by Devesh, and The Wire did not have any role in it. Based on information and documents provided by Devesh following the story published by The Wire on October 6, another story was published on October 10. The Wire claimed that the October 15 and October 17 reports were also based on “electronic documentation including emails and videos provided by Devesh Kumar, purportedly from Instagram and Meta and two independent experts.”
If we do not follow the story from the beginning, it is easier to believe that The Wire, a “well-reputed news portal” at the international level, got duped by a single person. Not to forget, some of the messiahs of The Wire on social media are also pointing fingers towards a larger conspiracy against The Wire at the behest of the ruling party.
However, if we consider the statements made by Siddharth between October 10 and October 31 on different platforms, it gets much clearer that more persons from The Wire were involved in the matter.
‘We know and met Meta sources’ – the October 12 thread
On October 12, two things happened. One, Siddharth wrote a lengthy thread on Twitter trying to overrule what Meta’s officials had suggested. Second, Meta issued an official press note giving an opportunity to The Wire to stop the reports on Meta by saying, “We accept scrutiny of our content decisions, but we fundamentally reject these false allegations based on what we believe to be fabricated evidence. We hope that The Wire is the victim of this hoax, not the perpetrator,” in their official press note that can be read here.
Siddharth started the thread “debunking” the claims that they could have been “played” by unknown elements who wanted to “discredit” the portal. He called the claims ridiculous and said, “Our stories came from multiple Meta sources—whom we know, have met and verified.” Siddharth was absolutely clear in his statement that someone from The Wire met and verified what they claimed in the reports from multiple Meta sources.
However, in the complaint, they did not mention any other alleged source and blamed solely Devesh for the mess. Interestingly, The Wire also claimed that one of the employees had a “personal relationship” with the Meta source that was later deleted from the statement quietly.
Further, into the thread, Siddharth said The Wire had reached out to Meta before October 6 story to get details of the takedown. However, as per him, Meta did not provide any information. He claimed after the October 6 story, they reached out to the Meta sources as part of the investigation. If Devesh was the one brought all the “forged evidence” to The Wire after the October 6 story, as claimed in the complaint by The Wire, who were they in contact with at the Meta after October 6? Why no screenshots of the communication sent to Meta before the October 6 story were ever published by The Wire? In the first story, they did mention that a communication was received from Meta’s PR agency but no further details were ever mentioned.
In the next tweet, he claimed that the sources at Meta provided them with the documents about the takedown. Interestingly, in the complaint, The Wire claimed these documents were sent by Devesh, who had claimed that his “friend” at Meta, identified as Philip Chua, sent it to him. If they got all the documents from Devesh via Chua, why Siddharth claimed that the document was forwarded to them by their Meta “sources” upon request?
Siddharth added that one of their sources at Meta did not know who Amit Malviya was. He categorically denied Meta’s claim that the documents were fabricated based on this particular “fact”. Again, Siddharth appeared to have claimed there were multiple people at Meta that were helping them. So far, The Wire has provided no information, screenshot of communication or anything that could have proved that they were in contact with sources within Meta.
After Andy Stone denied the allegations and said the documentation appeared to be fabricated, Siddharth claimed to reach out even more sources at Meta to confirm. He said, “They were able to quickly access and share Stone’s email. The idea that trusted sources with whom we have ongoing relations would fake the email is [laughable].” For what it’s worth, Meta should investigate who these sources were that “quickly accessed” Andy’s email and send it to The Wire!
According to Siddharth, the sources were so into The Wire that they were willing to sabotage their own employer and provide not only the screenshot but the “complete header” of the emails. He further claimed that if The Wire ever disclosed the header information, it could have jeopardised the identity of the sources, and they very well knew it before sending the details.
The identity of these sources, however, remains hidden to date. Were there any sources, or were these documents fabricated, forged and used by The Wire with an intention to malign the image of Amit Malviya and the BJP? It is a million-dollar question that needs an answer through a detailed investigation by relevant investigation agencies at the earliest.
Siddharth claimed The Wire personnel contacted one of the sources at Meta
In an October 19 interview with the Platformer, Siddharth categorically said that his colleagues at The Wire met one of the sources. When he was asked about the sources they mentioned in the stories, Siddharth told Platformer that there were two sources involved. Notably, Siddharth Varadarajan had claimed to be in contact with multiple sources at Meta. If multiple sources mean “two sources”, well, he needs to work on his communication skills.
Anyway, he further added that there were two sources involved. Source A provided the Instagram story, and Source B provided Andy’s email. He claimed Devesh was in contact with both sources and had met and interacted with them. Devesh was the only person who met the sources in person.
Source A, as per the complaint, was Philip Chua. Source B is still unkown. If Devesh met and interacted with Chua, did he go to Singapore for that? Chua is posted in Singapore. OpIndia is trying to reach out to Chua and get a comment from him on the matter. Notably, The Wire claimed that Devesh confessed to having fabricated everything.
Coming to Source B, The Wire claimed that this particular person was in contact with “a number of his colleagues”. They had interacted with that person going back four to five months. As of now, Source B appears to be a ghost or figment of the imagination of none other than Siddharth Varadarajan himself, as in the complaint, there is no mention of this particular Source B.
Siddharth Varadarajan was involved in Tek Fog stories
When Platformer asked Siddharth about the Tek Fog stories, he said that a particular investigation should not be made just about Devesh as he was equally involved in it. By that time, Tek Fog stories were not retracted. That happened on October 23. It can be assumed that by the time he gave an interview to Platformer, he did not let go of Tek Fog, which was another dubious work by The Wire in association with Devesh and Ayushman Kaul of logically.ai.
He had said, “I don’t think we should make this about Devesh, frankly. This should be equally about me, I was hands-on involved in the story. The point is that, yes there were some questions raised by some aspects of Tek Fog, but a lot of it actually was validated.
Tek Fog is a story we are continuing to work on, and we have found more corroborative material on that, so I am very reluctant to diss Tek Fog. If our review concludes that this set of stories [on Meta] doesn’t add up, it doesn’t mean the Tek Fog stories weren’t up to the mark.” It is unclear if The Wire will touch Tek Fog again. Maybe during the 2024 elections, but as of now, it will only backfire because of Devesh’s involvement in the said investigation. Not to forget, Devesh and Ayushman had claimed to work for two years on the “investigation”.
No credit to Devesh in the third follow-up story with Andy’s email
On October 11, Siddharth tweeted that he and Jahnavi worked on a story where they got their hands on Andy Stone’s angry email questioning how the PIR report got leaked. That story did not credit Devesh for the documents. The Wire’s Siddharth and Jahnavi seem to be in the mood to take all the credit for the story, no matter what the reason was.
The Wire cannot wash its hands of responsibility
In most of the statements sent out by Siddharth Varadarajan, he categorically said The Wire verified documents etc., with multiple sources. His name as co-author of the stories clearly points toward the fact that he was informed about the content of the reports, and he understood what was written. Throwing Devesh under the bus when caught red-handed and issuing an apology will not clear The Wire, its editors and reports named from the fact that they fabricated evidence, used fabricated evidence, did forgery, attempted to defame someone and kept on forging documents whenever they were caught red-handed.
It is noteworthy that the wrong dates in one of their explanations were one of the major turning points as they edited the screenshots with errors that raised red flags among those experts as well who had trust in The Wire. Not to forget, Ujjwal Kumar of Microsoft categorically said that he had communicated to The Wire not to use his name, but The Wire went ahead and did it. That means The Wire was aware of the fabrication of the documents but decided not to rectify the issue when it was still controllable.
‘No one knows where Devesh lives’
Journalist Jahangir Ali said in a tweet that no one knows where Devesh lives. How is it possible that The Wire and other companies he worked with did not ask for his address? Devesh was presumably being paid by The Wire for months, although he claimed in a now-deleted tweet that he has not drawn a salary from the organisation for months now. He seemed to have graduated from a reputed college in India. Notably, a copy of The Wire’s complaint has not been made available on social media. Does it contain Devesh’s address? Ayushman Kaul, who worked with him for two years, does he has his address or know about his whereabouts?
A thread on Devesh Kumar who perpetrated the fraud that The Wire finds itself entangled in.
— Jehangir Ali (@Gaamuk) November 1, 2022
To add to this, no one even knows where he lives. https://t.co/DGgZgt7eC6
The privacy of a person is important. No one should be doxxed. If his address is not available in the public domain, it must not be leaked. However, someone somewhere must be in touch with him, and only Devesh can explain how he managed to “dupe” The Wire or whether the far-left propaganda outlet has sacrificed him at the altar of salvaging its rapidly dwindling credibility.
