FIR In UP Against 'The Wire' Over Documentary On Mosque Demolition

On Tuesday, the Allahabad High Court had issued a notice to the UP government after the Sunni Waqf Board filed a petition, challenging the demolition of the mosque and seeking its restoration.

Days after a case was filed against online news platform - The Wire - over tweets linked to the alleged assault of a Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad, the state police have filed another case against the news website - this time in Barabanki. In the FIR (first information report) filed over a documentary on the demolition of a mosque in Barabanki, which the authorities describe as an "unauthorised structure", the news website has been accused of "promoting enmity" and holding an "intent to cause riot". "The news portal shared a video documentary on their Twitter handle on June 23 that makes baseless and false statements. The video makes illogical arguments, including that the administration defiled the religious texts of a particular religion and threw then into a drain. Nothing of this sort happened. The Wire has tried to spread discord in the society by saying these things and tried to spread communal disharmony," Barabanki District Magistrate Adarsh Singh said in a video statement on Twitter. The district is about 30 km from state capital Lucknow. Apart from the naming the news portal, the FIR also names two journalists working with the website. The case has been filed under sections like "intent to cause riot", "promoting enmity on the grounds of religion" and "criminal conspiracy". In a statement, The Wire's founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan said the portal will "not be intimidated" and that this case, like three others previously filed by the UP police in different matters, is "baseless".