Around 3,500 citizens including jurists, artists and writers have urged the UP government to withdraw the first information report and drop all criminal proceedings against The Wire’s editor Siddarth Varadarajan, saying a direct attack on press freedom.
The Wire was put in an FIR earlier this month for allegedly spreading fake news against Chief Minister Adityanath, while Varadarajan was served a notice last week for allegedly making an “objectionable comment” about him.
In a statement, the signatories demanded the government not to use the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity to act against media freedom and destroy people’s right to information. “A medical emergency should not serve as the pretext for the imposition of a de facto political emergency,” the statement said. At the same time, they also asked the media to not communalise the pandemic.
The matter is related with an article published in The Wire on March 31 against the backdrop of the controversy over an event organised by the Tablighi Jamaat in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area that left many participants infected with the coronavirus. In a tweet sharing the article, Varadarajan had mistakenly claimed that Adityanath said, “Lord Ram would protect devotees from the coronavirus.” The next day, he posted a clarification, noting that the statement had been made by Acharya Paramhans, the head of the Ayodhya temple trust, not by Adityanath. A correction was also made to The Wire’s article.
“The target of this action is a factual story on the Tablighi Jamaat and its exposure to Covid-19,” read the statement signed by over 3,500 citizens. “Towards the end, the impugned article merely pointed out that ‘Indian believers’ more generally have been late to adopt precautions and avoid congregation, recalling UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s plans, as late as March 18, to proceed with a religious fair at Ayodhya and his flouting of the national lockdown and social distancing norms by taking part in a religious ceremony along with others on March 25.”
