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FIRs Filed Against The Wire Editor Siddharth Varadarajan For Allegedly Spreading Fake News About Yogi Adityanath
The founding editors of The Wire have called the FIRs an 'Attack on Freedom of the Press'.
The Wire Editor Siddharth Varadarajan has been faced with two FIRs for allegedly spreading fake news about Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath. As per The Hindu, The Wire Founder was filed on charges of allegedly wrongly attributing a quote to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on the Ram Navami festival controversy.
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Mrityunjay Kumar, the media advisor to the UP CM Yogi Adityanath, stated that The Wire editor had not deleted or apologized for spreading the fake news. Hence, an FIR had been lodged against him.
Om March 31st, The Wire Founder Siddharth Varadarajan attributed a quote to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath while sharing a tweet. As per the tweet, “Adityanath insisted a large Ram Navami fair planned for Ayodhya from March 25 to April 2 would proceed as usual and that ‘Lord Ram would protect devotees from the coronavirus”.
However, he issued a clarification the next day. He stated that Mr. Adityanath did not utter the words about Lord Ram saving devotees against the coronavirus. “I should clarify that it was Acharya Paramhans, Hindutva stalwart and head of the official Ayodhya temple trust, who said Ram would protect devotees from coronavirus, and not Adityanath, though he allowed a public event on 25/3 in defiance of the lockdown and took part himself,” Mr. Varadarajan tweeted.
UP Police FIR An ‘Attack on Freedom of the Press’
Meanwhile, the founding editors of The Wire have issued a statement in response to the FIR. They have called it an ‘Attack on Freedom of the Press’.
In a statement issued late on Wednesday, Siddharth Varadarajan said he had come to know about the FIRs through social media. “A bare perusal of the FIR shows that it is politically motivated and the offences invoked are not even remotely made out.”
“What the FIR says I have stated — that Chief Minister Adityanath attended a public religious event in Ayodhya on March 25 after the Prime Minister had announced a national lockdown — is a matter of record,”The Wire editor added.
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