The Wire, late on Monday, released a statement saying teams of the Delhi Police Crime Branch raided the homes of its founding editors Siddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu, Sidharth BhatiaSiddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia and deputy editor Jahnavi Sen.
While Varadarajan, Venu and Sen reside in Delhi, Bhatia is a resident of Mumbai. The Wire's office in Delhi's Bhagat Singh Market was also searched.
The police action was in connection with an FIR filed by BJP leader Amit Malviya over their story that alleged that Malviya was part of Meta's XCheck programme and he had the privilege of protection from reports against his profile, and report and remove any post without review by the company. The Wire has rescinded the story and rebuttals, in the face of Meta pushback, after an internal probe found that the documents the stories were based on were fabricated.
What happened during the raids?
The Wire said a large contingent of police personnel searched the homes of its editors and their office and took away devices. "All four 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. The hash value is a unique numerical value used to ensure the integrity of a device and its data," The Wire said.
The Wire said that its lawyer was physically pushed out of the office by the Delhi police officers. "The Crime Branch party then took away the hard disks from the two computers used by our accounts staff, again without mention of any hash value or providing us a cloned copy so that the normal financial work so central to the day-to-day functioning of a media organisation can continue uninterrupted," the statement read.
While the Delhi Police Crime Branch of police has not put out an official statement on the searches, visuals taken on Monday night outside Varadarajan's home showed the personnel carrying out devices.
Journalists, media body, politicians condemn action
DIGIPUB News India Foundation, the media body of which BOOM Live and The Wire are founding members, condemned the police action. A statement from it read that while journalists or media organisations publishing fake news must be held accountable, the police search on Monday reeked of malafide intentions.
"DIGIPUB strongly condemns in no uncertain terms the searches against the editors and reporter of The Wire, which mainly serve the purpose of criminalising and creating a chilling effect against the profession of journalism in India," the statement read.
Journalists and politicians in the opposition also criticised the action against The Wire. N Ram, the director of The Hindu Publishing Group, took to Twitter and said, "All democrats must share our deep concern over the Delhi police's reported "search" of the residences & devices of The Wire's Siddharth Varadarajan and M. K. Venu. What is the legal justification for targeting them? Amit Malviya's over-the-top complaint?"
Ram also asked why an FIR had not been registered against The Wire's complaint against Devesh Kumar, the reporter who had provided the documents to The Wire, which were later found to be fake.
The Wire had lodged a complaint with the Delhi police against Kumar for allegedly providing fabricated details to the organisation and had urged the police to probe if he had colluded with others.
Suhasini Haidar, national editor and diplomatic affairs editor of The Hindu, called the searches, "thinly veiled acts of intimidation".
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra said, "When @thewire_in openly acknowledged error & retracted story where is need for raids & seizing phones, laptops and iPads? Supreme Court has already expressed concern at this wholesale intrusion of privacy."
What has Amit Malviya accused The Wire of?
Malviya alleged that The Wire along with "unknown persons" had conspired against him with the intent to tarnish his reputation. He claimed that The Wire "deliberately inserted my name into a story, and fabricated evidence to implicate me. I am left with no option other than to seek legal remedies".
The Indian Express quoted Malviya's complaint as saying, "I am filing the present complaint for the offences of cheating, forgery for the purpose of cheating, forgery for the purpose of harming reputation, using as genuine a forged document or electronic record and defamation amongst other provisions of IPC."
In response to Malviya's FIR, The Wire said in a statement: "Journalists rely on sources for stories and do their best to verify material they receive. Technological evidence is more complicated and the usual due diligence may not always reveal the fraud perpetrated upon a publication. This is what happened to us. In the life of any publication, an occasion may come when it is misinformed. The moral test is whether the publication persists or speaks the truth. We chose the latter when we realised we had been given fraudulent information. Whether the person who brought all the material to The Wire deceived us at anyone' else's behest or acted on his own is a matter that will be subjected to judicial process in due course. The malintent to discredit The Wire is obvious."