Devesh Kumar, the ‘tech expert’ behind the Tek Fog and Meta stories by The Wire which have been pulled down now after they were found to be fake, has made the first public appearance after the Meta controversy blew up. Appearing on Times Now, Devesh Kumar denied the claim by The Wire that he is mentally unstable, and said he accepts there were ‘errors’ in the story, but blamed his ‘sources’ for the fraudulent documents based on which the story was published.
Talking to Times Now on 2nd November 2022, Devesh Kumar said that he is cooperating with the police in this case, and informed that police have seized two computers and a phone from him in the case. He denied facing any mental health issues, responding to a claim by his former employer The Wire. It is notable that The Wire put Devesh Kumar under the bus after it was forced to retract the Meta and Fog stories, claimed that Devesh Kumar had defrauded them by supplying fake evidence, and also alleged that he is mentally disturbed. He said that The Wire has used the wrong language for him in the complaint filed against him with the police.
Devesh Kumar said, “No. I am not mentally unstable. This is the first time something like this is happening in my life. I am not troubled. The people of ‘The Wire’ and I are facing several difficulties right now. I was nervous and stressed. But the language that has been used is wrong, according to me.”
However, he refused to divulge any details about the matter. He added, “The investigation is currently ongoing. I don’t think I can reveal any details on this. At least not without consulting the police. For now, my statement is the same as that of ‘The Wire’, which tells the overreaching story of what happened.” Devesh also refused to reveal any detail about his background like his educational background. He said he does not want to be the story, therefore he does not want to share personal details.
#WireConfessionTape
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) November 2, 2022
Devesh Kumar, Ex-Reporter with #TheWire speaks to TIMES NOW.
“We are all disturbed but the language branding me ‘mentally unstable’ is not correct at all. I have cooperated with the Police fully,” Mr. Kumar says. pic.twitter.com/ba3gJTEb4r
On being asked about the investigation initiated by the police, Devesh Kumar further said, “I don’t know enough about the law to comment on this. I have completely cooperated with the police ever since ‘The Wire’ released its statement. Even when they seized my phone and computers, I cooperated with the police. I had requested the police for a hash value to make sure no tempering occurs. But so far, I have not received it. They gave me a document stating that they have seized certain devices and will be looking into the email IDs I had used to conduct the research.”
However, he added that he is not considering any legal recourse now as he is not named in any FIR, and police are questioning him only to gather information. It is notable that the complaint filed by Amit Malviya, based on which the FIR was registered, did not name Devesh Kumar. On the other hand, The Wire has filed a complaint against him, but the police are yet to register any FIR on it. He also pointed out that most of the reports were published in the names of others, not him. Of the three main reports where The Wire had made the claims about Amit Malviya and Meta, all three had Jahnavi Sen as one of the co-authors. Apart from her, Siddharth Varadarajan was a co-author in two reports, and Devesh was a co-author in just one of them.
#WireConfessionTape
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) November 2, 2022
I'm not taking any legal recourse as I have not been mentioned in any FIR. I'm not required to take the legal route & am not planning to take any. I'm not the main story, it's about Meta: Devesh Kumar, Ex-Reporter with #TheWire speaks to TIMES NOW pic.twitter.com/3mJpkSQmxU
Interestingly, Devesh Kumar said that he agrees with Wire’s statement that there were mistakes in the Meta story, and said his stand is the same as the Wire’s stand. This is a surprising statement because The Wire has claimed that Devesh Kumar defrauded them by supplying forged documents.
On October 29, The Wire filed a complaint at the Economic Offence Wing of the Delhi Police against its former employee and so-called ‘researcher’ Devesh Kumar, claiming he provided forged documents with “an intent to malign The Wire’s reputation”. Furthermore, it was noted by The Wire in its complaint that Devesh named Philip Chua, APAC Head of Public Policy at Instagram as the person who provided him with a ‘Post Incident Review Report’ that had pointed fingers at Bharatiya Janata Party’s Amit Malviya as the person responsible for the post takedown.
Devesh seemed ‘highly disturbed mentally’, claims The Wire.
The Wire claimed in its complaint that following the internal investigation and review of the material sent by Devesh by ‘reputed’ outside sources when they tried to contact Devesh, he did not revert. However, he called The Wire’s Product and Business Head Mithun Kidambi on October 27 and “confessed to fabricating all the material” that The Wire used in its Meta stories. “The impression Kidambi gathered was that Devesh Kumar seemed highly disturbed mentally,” claimed The Wire.
The complaint was sent to the Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravinder Singh Yadav on Saturday (October 29). The Print quoted Yadav saying that he received the complaint and the Police were “looking into the matter”. Police were yet to send a confirmation of the receipt of the complaint to The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan.
FIR lodged against The Wire
On October 29, BJP’s Amit Malviya filed a complaint with Delhi Police against The Wire, its editors, and reporters and said they published a series of stories with the intent to tarnish his reputation. Based on his complaint, an FIR was registered under Sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery with the purpose of cheating), 469 (forgery for harming reputation), 471 (using forged document), 500 (defamation), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. The FIR was lodged after The Wire took down Meta stories that claimed Malviya was able to take down Instagram posts critical to the government, no questions asked.
