FIR against fake news website The Wire for trying to incite Muslims in UP’s Barabanki

Propaganda news outlet, The Wire has been found propagating fake news for the umpteenth time whilst attempting to sow seeds of communal discord which could have resulted in potential clashes between the authorities and the minority group. The Barabanki Police on Thursday lodged an FIR against The Wire and its three journalists for sharing a video and for spreading animosity and disturbing communal harmony in the society by disseminating misinformation.

Reportedly, The Wire on June 22 and 23 released a video on its YouTube and Twitter platforms respectively falsely claiming that a mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki was destroyed and desecrated by the authorities.

However, the authorities were quick to react and denounced the video before it could be peddled on the realms of social media platforms to chastise the Yogi Adityanath administration. Adarsh Singh, District Magistrate, cleared the air and remarked that the video was completely baseless.

“On June 23, the online news portal, The Wire, shared a video documentary about the Ramsnehi Ghat Tehsil premises on their Twitter handle. In the documentary, they have shown false and baseless information. The video contains several wrongs and baseless statements, including the one which says that the administration and police threw religious scriptures in drain and river. This is false. Nothing of this sort happened. With misinformation like this, The Wire is trying to spread animosity in society and disturbing communal harmony,” said the DM.

The FIR names Siraji Ali, Mohammed Anees, Mukul Chauhan — all journalist with The Wire, one Mohammed Naeem and others as accused. “The accused have deliberately tried to show the lawful demolition of the structure at Ramsanehi Ghat in a bad light. The video contains misleading information based on wrong facts and the documentary seems to have been shot to disrupt communal amity of the region,” read the FIR.

Reported by TFI, defending the demolition, the district administration had earlier remarked, “In the Tehsil residential complex of Ramsnehi Ghat in front of the SDM’s residence, regarding a residential illegal structure, (a) chance was given to opposite party to present their version through a notice issued on March 15. After the notice was sent, the people living in the illegal structure fled… On March 18, the Tehsil administrative team took the questionable construction under its possession for the purpose of safety.”

Read More: Sunni Waqf Board throws a hissy fit as Yogi government demolishes an illegal mosque

Siddharth Varadarajan, a known leftist and a product of the UPA raj where journalists were nurtured by the Gandhi clan, is the owner of The Wire and thus it doesn’t come as a surprise that the propaganda channel is trying to disrupt the communal harmony in UP, with the state assembly elections, scheduled to be held a year later.