The Delhi Police on Monday searched the houses of The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan and deputy editor M K Venu in connection with a now retracted story related to BJP’s IT department head Amit Malviya. A senior police officer said electronic devices belonging to the two senior editors of the news portal will be examined. No arrests have been made yet in the case, the officer said. Police on Saturday filed an FIR under sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery with purpose of cheating), 469 (forgery for harming reputation), 471 (using a forged document as genuine), 500 (defamation) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC on a complaint by BJP IT’s cell chief Amit Malviya. The four senior journalists named in the FIR are Siddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia and Jahnavi Sen. Malviya had on Friday said he would pursue criminal and civil proceedings against the portal over stories, since retracted, that insinuated that the BJP leader enjoyed the privilege on Meta platforms of having any post taken down which he believed was against the BJP’s interests.
The Wire has also filed a police complaint against its former consultant Devesh Kumar in connection with the story.
Meanwhile, Siddharth's brother Tunku Varadarajan tweeted, "The @DelhiPolice Crime Branch just searched the house of my brother @svaradarajan & seized his phone & laptop. Why seize these when his publication has acknowledged/retracted a mistake?”
