Over 200 journalists condemn FIR against the founding editor of the Wire Siddharth Varadarajan

Over 200 journalists on Monday came out strongly against the Uttar Pradesh government and its police for filling an FIR against Siddharth Varadarajan, the Founding Editor of the Wire, calling it a "brazen" attempt to "muzzle" the media.

The Uttar Pradesh police this month booked Varadarajan over comments on Twitter claiming that the day Tablighi Jamaat held its event in Delhi, Chief Minister Adityanath had insisted that a Ram Navami fair will take place as usual.

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The FIR against Varadarajan also mentioned his remark questioning Adityanath's participation in a religious ceremony at the Ramjanmabhoomi site in Ayodhya during the nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus.

The journalists from print, electronic and digital media condemned the FIR in a joint statement, saying the manner in which the UP government and its police have been pursuing this with a single-minded agenda "smacks of vindictiveness".

This constitutes nothing but a "brazen attempt to muzzle the media", the statement said.

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The statement has been endorsed by well known media persons like N Ram, Chairman, Hindu Group of Publications; R Vijaya Sankar, Editor of Frontline; Rajdeep Sardesai, Consulting Editor, India Today Group; Om Thanvi, former editor of Jansatta; Prem Shankar Jha, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay and Harish Khare among others.

The signatories to the statement include Suhasini Haider, Sagarika Ghose, Maya Mirchandani, Sonia Singh, Neerja Chowdhry, Gautam Lahiri, John Dayal and Ziya Us Salam.

"The state has an extra responsibility to exercise restraint on use of its powers when citizens are restricted in exercising many of their usual democratic rights," the statement said.

"Freedom of the press is doubly important in such a context as people cannot make news themselves, but independent media is the most important medium of expressing their concerns. We demand that such politically motivated harassment of media persons should stop immediately," it said.

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The Wire was accused of causing panic when it reported that UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath attended a religious event on March 25 at Ayodhya on the occasion of Ram Navmi, when a national lockdown was in force, it said.

The Wire has held that the CM's presence was a matter of public record and knowledge and a sentence in an article in the Wire had wrongly attributed a statement made by Acharya Paramhans to the chief minister, which was not only retracted but a corrigendum issued as well, the statement said.

Rather than let the matter end there, an FIR was filed in Faizabad district, it added.

On April 10, a team of the UP police descended at Varadarajan's residence to serve him a notice for appearing on April 14, irrespective of the fact that a nationwide lockdown was in force, the statement said.

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The FIR had referred to a tweet by Varadarajan which said, "On the day 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 that Lord Ram would protect devotees from the coronavirus".

Later, the journalist tweeted, "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."

The Editors Guild of India had also earlier condemned the FIR, saying the police action in the form of an FIR under criminal laws at this stage is an "overreaction and an act of intimidation".