We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the FIRs filed against The Wire’s Founding Editor Siddharth Varadarajan by the police in Faizabad District, Uttar Pradesh. This is clearly an attempt to intimidate the media and muzzle its freedom.
The Wire has been accused of causing panic when it reported that the UP CM Adityanath, attended a public religious event on 25 March at Ayodhya, despite the countrywide lockdown. The Wire has responded that the Chief Minister’s attendance of this event is a matter of public record and knowledge. Hence, the IPC provisions on “disobedience of an order issued by a public servant” and issuing “statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes” mentioned in the FIRs do not apply.
A sentence in an article published by The Wire on 31 March mistakenly attributed the claim that Lord Ram would protect his devotees from the Corona virus to CM Adityanath, a remark actually made by Acharya Paramhans. This was retracted the following day by the website and the necessary correction made.
Mritunjay Kumar, Media Adviser to the Chief Minister, had earlier taunted Vardarajan in a tweet, saying, “Along with running the website, [you] will have to seek donations to fight the case.”
This is gross intolerance of criticism, essential for independent media to function in a democracy. This is why we strongly condemn the FIR filed against our colleague Siddharth Varadarajan as politically motivated, and call on all citizens of conscience to insist on our right to a free and independent media.
Read the statement in Hindi here.
| 1 | A Mangai | 82 | Nandita Narain |
| 2 | Abhijit Sengupta | 83 | Naresh Fernandes |
| 3 | Abhishek Majumdar | 84 | Naseeruddin Shah |
| 4 | Adil Jussawalla | 85 | Natasha Badhwar |
| 5 | Aditi Mehta | 86 | Navrekha Sharma |
| 6 | Adiya Nigam | 87 | Nayantara Sahgal |
| 7 | Akeel Bilgrami | 88 | Neelan Premji |
| 8 | Alok Perti | 89 | Neeraj Malik |
| 9 | Amit Bhaduri | 90 | Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay |
| 10 | Amit Chaudhuri | 91 | Nilima Sheikh |
| 11 | Amitabha Pande | 92 | Nirmal Mitra |
| 12 | Amitav Ghosh | 93 | Nivedita Menon |
| 13 | Ammu Joseph | 94 | Nupur Basu |
| 14 | Anand Patwardhan | 95 | P R Dasgupta |
| 15 | Anand Teltumbde | 96 | P Sainath |
| 16 | Anita Agnihotri | 97 | Padmaja Shaw |
| 17 | Anna Dani | 98 | Paranjoy Guha Thakurta |
| 18 | Anuradha Kapur | 99 | Partha Chatterjee |
| 19 | Ardhendu Sen | 100 | Parthasarathi Majumdar |
| 20 | Aruna Roy | 101 | Parvathi Menon |
| 21 | Ashok Sharma | 102 | Poile Sengupta |
| 22 | Atamjit Singh | 103 | Prabir Purkayastha |
| 23 | Ayesha Kidwai | 104 | Preeti Edakunny |
| 24 | B R P Bhaskar | 105 | Prema Viswanathan |
| 25 | Badri Raina | 106 | Purushottam Agrawal |
| 26 | Bharat Dogra | 107 | Pushpamala N |
| 27 | Bharati Jagannathan | 108 | Rahman Abbas |
| 28 | Bhasha Singh | 109 | Rajendra Chenni |
| 29 | C K Meena | 110 | Ratna Pathak Shah |
| 30 | Chaman Lal | 111 | Rekha Awasthi |
| 31 | Chandrakant Patil | 112 | Renu Ramanath |
| 32 | Chitrangada Choudhury | 113 | Revathi Siva Kumar |
| 33 | Debashis Chatterji | 114 | Revati Laul |
| 34 | Devaki Khanna | 115 | Ritu Menon |
| 35 | Devasahayam MG | 116 | Rukmini Bhaya Nair |
| 36 | Firoz Kamal | 117 | S Raghunandana |
| 37 | G N Devy | 118 | Sakuntala Narasimhan |
| 38 | Geeta Kapur | 119 | Saleem Peeradina |
| 39 | Geeta Seshu | 120 | Salim Yusufji |
| 40 | Geetanjali Shree | 121 | Samik Bandyopadhyay |
| 41 | Gita Jayaraj | 122 | Sandhya Srinivasan |
| 42 | Githa Hariharan | 123 | Sangeeta Luthra Sharma |
| 43 | Hari Vasudevan | 124 | Sanjeev Kumar |
| 44 | Hindal Tyabji | 125 | Satyabhama Subramanian |
| 45 | Indira Chandrasekhar | 126 | Saumya Chakrabarti |
| 46 | Indra Shekhar Shahh | 127 | Seema Mustafa |
| 47 | Javed Malick | 128 | Sevanti Ninan |
| 48 | Jeet Thayil | 129 | Shafey Kidwai |
| 49 | Jisha Elizabeth | 130 | Shamsul Islam |
| 50 | Jyothi A | 131 | Shankar Raghuraman |
| 51 | Jyoti Punwani | 132 | Shashi Deshpande |
| 52 | K P Fabian | 133 | Shoma A Chatterji |
| 53 | K. Satchidanandan | 134 | Sibaji Bandyopadhyay |
| 54 | Kamayani Bali Mahabal | 135 | SK Pande |
| 55 | Karen Gabriel | 136 | Srinivasa Gowda |
| 56 | Keki Daruwalla | 137 | Subhasis Nibirh |
| 57 | Keshav Desiraju | 138 | Subir Ghosh |
| 58 | Kingshuk Nag | 139 | Sudhanva Deshpande |
| 59 | Kumkum Roy | 140 | Sudhir Chandra |
| 60 | L H Naqvi | 141 | Sugata Srinivasaraju |
| 61 | Leela Jacinto | 142 | Sujata Madhok |
| 62 | M M P Singh | 143 | Sujatha Rao |
| 63 | Madhu Bhaduri | 144 | Sukanta Chaudhuri |
| 64 | Maja Daruwala | 145 | Sumi Krishna |
| 65 | Makarand Sathe | 146 | Sumit Sarkar |
| 66 | Mala Dayal | 147 | Sundar Burra |
| 67 | Malini Subramaniam | 148 | Suresh Goel |
| 68 | Mallika Sarabhai | 149 | Swapan Chakravorty |
| 69 | Manabi Majumdar | 150 | Sweta Singh |
| 70 | Mangad Rathnakaran | 151 | T M Krishna |
| 71 | Manishi Jani | 152 | Tanika Sarkar |
| 72 | Mannika Chopra | 153 | Tapati Guha Thakurta |
| 73 | Meena Gupta | 154 | Uma Bhrugubanda |
| 74 | Meena Menon | 155 | Vibha Puri Das |
| 75 | Meher | 156 | Vibodh Parthasarathi |
| 76 | Melanie P Kumar | 157 | Vijay Prashad |
| 77 | Mridula Garg | 158 | Vijaya Venkataraman |
| 78 | Mridula Koshy | 159 | Vinod K Jose |
| 79 | Mrinal Pande | 160 | Vivek Narayanan |
| 80 | Naina Dayal | 161 | Zoya Hasan |
| 81 | Nancy Adajania |
