Several journalist associations on Tuesday expressed concern over the Delhi Police searches against the editors of The Wire news portal, conducted on the basis of a first information report (FIR) lodged by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national head of IT Amit Malviya alleging cheating, forgery, defamation and criminal conspiracy.
On Monday, the police searched the premises of The Wire’s founding editors Siddharth Varadarajan, M.K. Venu, Sidharth Bhatia, deputy editor Jahnavi Sen and product-cum-business head Mithun Kidambi in Delhi and Mumbai in connection with a series of reports that appeared on the portal and later withdrawn.
In a joint statement, the Press Club of India, Delhi Union of Journalists, Press Association, Working News Cameraman Association, Indian Journalists Union, DIGIPUB News India Foundation and the Kerala Union of Working Journalists said digital devices of those named in the FIR were seized. “From what we know, this was done without providing a hash value [a unique numerical value used to ensure the integrity of a device and its data] as per procedure,” they said.
The organisations said the FIR pertained to the reports published in The Wire about a post that was “taken down by a social media intermediary”. “The complaints were filed after The Wire retracted its stories and issued an apology to its readers, with a promise that rigour in editorial processes involving technical evidence would be followed henceforth. The Wire’s ombudsperson also assured the readers that the lapses would be looked into very seriously,” said the statement released by the PCI.
“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 that includes a bevy of charges..., registered an FIR and chose to proceed with the investigation with uncharacteristic promptness,” it said.
‘Chilling effect on media’
“The PCI is of the view that while the media has a responsibility to report and has to be responsible in reporting at all times, the manner in which the Delhi Police has acted on the complaint of a BJP spokesperson smacks of sheer vendetta. Such actions have a chilling effect on the rest of the media and impact the freedom of speech as well,” said the statement.
Earlier, the DIGIPUB had said that the searches mainly served the purpose of criminalising and creating a chilling effect on the profession of journalism in India. “While any fair investigation must follow the rule of law, it 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,” it said.
The Wire said: “All five cooperated and gave over the devices sought...we also placed on record our demand for the hash value of the phones, computers and iPads seized and for cloned copies of the devices seized to be kept at a neutral place.”
“In spite of this cooperation, The Wire’s office at Bhagat Singh Market in Delhi was also searched and one of our lawyers physically pushed out by the officers at that site...,” it said.
