UP police files FIR against journalist Siddharth Varadarajan for tweet on farmer death

 

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh police has registered an FIR against 'The Wire' founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan for tweeting a story regarding the death of a protesting farmer during the Republic Day tractor rally.

 

 

Varadarajan has been booked under Sections 153-B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) and 505(2) (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

 

 

India Today’s senior anchor Rajdeep Sardesai, National Herald’s senior consulting editor Mrinal Pande, the Caravan magazine’s editor, and founder Paresh Nath, its editor Anant Nath and executive editor Vinod K Jose and Qaumi Awaz editor Zafar Agha – have also been booked for ‘misleading’ tweets on the death of the farmer.

 

 

Several media organizations have strongly condemned the FIRs. Varadarajan said the FIR reeks of “malicious prosecution”.

 

 

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“This is a pathetic excuse on the part of the concerned state governments. In a moving story, things change on a regular basis. Accordingly, the reporting reflects the circumstances, when large crowds are involved and the air is thick with suppositions, suspicions, and hypotheses, there can sometimes be a divergence between earlier and later reports. It is criminal to ascribe this to motivated reporting, as is sought to have been done,” the Press Council of India said in a statement.

 

 

The UP police registered another case against Varadarajan in 2020, also for a tweet against CM Yogi Adityanath.