India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI, APRIL 2—The Uttar Pradesh police have registered two FIRs against Siddharth Varadrajanm, one of the founding editors of news portal The Wire, on allegations of making derogatory remarks against the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath aka Ajay Singh Bisht, in his blog.
The two FIRs were registered on Wednesday evening.
While the first FIR was registered in the Faizabad City Kotwali Police Station based on a complaint of Station House Officer Nitish Kumar Srivastava himself, the second FIR was registered at the Ayodhya Police Station in Faizabad city on the complaint of a resident Harvajan Goud.
Srivastava, in his complaint, said: “The Wire editor(name and address not known) on his blog, with the aim to spread rumours and hostility among the public, publicised the following message: ‘On the day the Tablighi Jamaat event was held, Yogi Adityanath insisted that a large fair planned for Ayodhya on the occasion of Ram Navami from March 25 to April 2 would proceed as usual while Acharya Paramhans said that Lord Ram would protect devotees from the coronavirus.”
Srivastava’s complaint filed on April 1 was based on the article of March 31 which Varadrajan had posted on his website and tweeted. Srivastava had, however, not named the editor in his complaint but it referred to Varadrajan as he happens to the editor of the protal. In the FIR, he mentioned “unnamed editor” at “unknown address”.
Goud, in his complaint, alleged that one “Siddharth” made objectionable remarks against Yogi Adityanath in his tweet.
In his original article published on March 31, 2020, Varadarajan had said, “On the day of the Tablighi Jamaat event was held, Adityanath insisted a large Ram Navami Fair planned for Ayodhya from March 25 to April 2 would proceed as usual and the ‘Lord Ram would protect devotees from the coronavirus”.
Varadarajan was immediately contacted by chief minister’s media advisor Mrityunjay Kumar and the latter told him that CM had wrongly attributed the quote that “‘Lord Ram would protect devotees from the coronavirus” to the CM. Kumar asked Varadarajan to delete the tweet and apologise.
Varadarajan did not delete the tweet. However, he corrected it, attributing the quote to Acharya Paramhans, chief of the Ayodhya Temple Trust, who had made this statement.
After making corrections, Varadarajn tweeted, “I should clarify that it was Acharya Paramhans, Hindutva stalwart and head of the official 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”.
The article on The Wire was also edited with the clarification. “In an earlier version of the story, the quote about Ram saving devotees from the coronavirus was wrongly attributed to Yogi Adityanath. It was in fact said by Acharya Paramhans, head of the official Ram temple trust,” the article said.
However, this did not satisfy Kumar. Two FIRs were subsequently filed against Varadarajan. Within minutes, Kumar tweeted that action had been taken against Varadarajan as the latter had neither deleted the tweet nor apologised.
“If you too are thinking of spreading lies about the Yogi government, please remove such thoughts from your mind”, Kumar tweeted. “Along with running the website, (you) will have to seek donations to fight the case,” Mr Kumar taunted the editor.
Reacting to filing of FIRs, Varadarajan termed the UP Police action, “an attack on the Freedom Of Press”.
“The offences invoked in them were not even remotely made out and that it is aimed at stifling legitimate expression and factual information”, the founding editors of the Wire said in a statement.
The statement added, “it seems the job of the UP police is to go after those who criticise the CM”.
