Delhi Police raid homes of The Wire founder Siddharth Vardarajan, editor MK Venu; no arrests made

The Delhi Police on Monday raided the homes of The Wire founder Siddharth Vardarajan and editor MK Venu in the capital city.

Clarifying that nobody had been arrested or detained, the police said that they would be searching the pair's electronic devices, among other things, in order to collect evidence in regards to the case currently filed against The Wire.

Following the lodging of an FIR against the pair, as well as other editors of the publication, following the complaint made by BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya in connection to their stories, which the news portal retracted on October 23, following a backlash.

The retracted stories alleged -- falsely as it turned out -- that Malviya had special privileges at Meta, the parent company of Facebook.

The Wire had published a series of articles against Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The Wire’s investigation claimed that Amit Malviya, the head of the BJP’s IT Cell, holds special privileges on the social media platforms, through the controversial XCheck programme.

The FIR against The Wire journalists has been filed under Indian Penal Code sections — 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery with the purpose of cheating), 469 (forgery for harming reputation), 471 (using forged document), 500 (defamation), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention).