New Delhi, October 31
The Delhi Police on Monday said a team of their officials searched the houses of news portal The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan and deputy editor M K Venu in connection with an FIR registered against them following a complaint filed by BJP’s IT department head Amit Malviya with regard to a now-retracted story related to him.
Officials in the Delhi Police said electronic devices belonging to the two senior editors of the news portal will be examined. No arrests have been made yet in the case, they said.
Police had on Saturday filed an FIR against the news portal and its editors on a complaint by Malviya accusing the media outlet of “cheating and forgery” and “tarnishing” his reputation.
Malviya had on Friday said he would pursue criminal and civil proceedings against the portal over stories, since retracted, that alleged that the BJP leader enjoyed the privilege on Meta platforms of having any post taken down which he believed was against the BJP’s interests.
Malviya’s complaint was filed with Delhi Police’s Special Commissioner (Crime) against ‘The Wire’, its founding editors Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia and Venu and executive news producer Jahnavi Sen, the Foundation for Independent Journalism and other unknown people.
The Wire has also filed a police complaint against its former consultant Devesh Kumar in connection with the story related to Malviya.