FIR against news portal, its two scribes, others for “circulating false facts”
LUCKNOW: Barabanki district police on Thursday night lodged a first information report (FIR) against news portal “The Wire”, its two journalists and some others for allegedly sharing false and fabricated facts on a social media platform in the form of a news documentary on June 23 about the demolition of a mosque at Ram Sanehi Ghat tehsil of the district on May 17 last with the intention of disturbing communal harmony, said Barabanki district magistrate Adarsh Singh on Friday. Singh said sub-inspector Mahendra Singh of Ram Sanehi Ghat police station had lodged the FIR.
The case has been registered against journalists Siraj Ali and Mukul S Chauhan, and two others -- Mohammad Anees and Mohammad Naeem -- who gave “provocative” statements in the documentary that spread “prejudiced, misleading and untrue” information, police said on Friday.The Barabanki DM said they were booked under Sections 153 (for provocation with intent to cause riot), 153-A (for promoting enmity between two religions), 505(1)(b) (for public mischief or spreading rumour), 120-B (for criminal conspiracy) and 34 (for committing crime with common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.
As per the FIR, the news portal shared a news documentary video on twitter on June 23 in which they presented false and baseless narration of throwing of a holy book into a river and a drain while the mosque in question was razed. The video was widely shared on twitter by different people with the common intention of spreading rumours and disturbing communal harmony.The DM said the facts and narration in the video shared by “The Wire” twitter handle was false and fabricated. He said no such incident of a holy book having been thrown into a river and a drain had taken place.
“This is the fourth FIR filed by the UP Police in the past 14 months against The Wire and/ or its journalists and each of these cases is baseless. The Adityanath government does not believe in media freedom and is criminalising the work of journalists who are reporting what is happening in the state,” said The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan in a statement.
Earlier on May 17, Barabanki district administration had demolished the mosque while claiming that it was residential encroachment on government land. The controversy erupted over the issue with some Muslim groups alleging that the act was illegal.
On May 21, the administration had lodged an FIR against an inspector of UP Sunni Central Waqf Board and seven others for allegedly forging documents to get the mosque registered as a Waqf property.