An FIR was lodged against news portal The Wire in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly spreading false information that religious scriptures of a particular community were thrown into a river and drain following the demolition of a mosque by the administration in Barabanki.
The FIR was lodged for a documentary titled ‘How a Mosque in U.P.’s Barabanki was Demolished’, which showed members of the committee of the demolished mosque terming the administrative act illegal and claiming that they had documents to prove the structure was legal.
In May, the Barabanki administration, after carrying out the demolition, said an “illegal residential complex” was found situated opposite to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate’s residence in the Ramsanehi Ghat tehsil compounds.
The Allahabad High Court recently issued notices to the administration on the demolition after petitions were filed before it terming the administrative act illegal and arbitrary.
Adarsh Singh, District Magistrate, Barabanki, said the FIR against The Wire was lodged for allegedly spreading misleading and false information, trying to spread religious animosity and frenzy and spoiling communal harmony.
Mohammad Anees; Mohammad Naeem; Seraj Ali, journalist of The Wire, who reported the documentary; Mukul S. Chauhan and The Wire were named in the FIR.
The Wire editor Siddharth Varadarajan said this was the fourth FIR filed by the U.P. police in the past 14 months against the portal and/or its journalists and “each of these cases is baseless”. The Yogi Adityanath government did not believe in media freedom and was criminalising the work of journalists who were reporting what was happening in the State, he said.
