Reacting to the raids at the residences of its editors MK Venu and Siddharth Varadarajan and other employees, The Wire issued a statement saying that the Delhi Police Crime branch personnel did not accept their demand for the hash value of the phones, computers and iPads seized and for cloned copies of the devices seized to be kept at a neutral place.

The residences of two editors of The Wire were searched after BJP leader Amit Malviya in his complaint alleged that The Wire 'forged documents with a view to malign and tarnish his reputation.

Malviya has accused The Wire of "cheating and forgery". The BJP leader filed the complaint against Varadarajan, Venu, The Wire founding editor Sidharth Bhatia, deputy editor and executive news producer Jahnavi Sen, Foundation for Independent Journalism.

It may be noted that The Wire had reported that Malviya had certain privileges to take down posts from Meta-owned Instagram. However, the reports were denied by Meta.

Today (October 31, 2022), the Delhi Police Crime Branch deployed a large contingent of its personnel across Delhi and Mumbai to the homes of our founding editors Siddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia and deputy editor Jahnavi Sen pursuant to a Section 91 notice issued in relation to an FIR lodged against them by BJP leader Amit Malviya.

All four cooperated and gave over the devices sought. We also placed on record our demand for the hash value of the phones, computers and iPads seized and for cloned copies of the devices seized to be kept at a neutral place.

The hash value is a unique numerical value used to ensure the integrity of a device and its data.

The Wire's editors and staffers fully cooperated but placed on record that all devices and hard disks were seized without mentioning any hash value – a unique numerical value used to ensure the integrity of the device and it Delhi Police Crime Branch deployed a large contingent of its personnel across Delhi and Mumbai to the homes of our founding editors Siddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia and deputy editor Jahnavi Sen pursuant to a Section 91 notice issued in relation to an FIR lodged against them by BJP leader Amit Malviya.

“The Crime Branch party then took away the hard disks from the two computers used by our accounts staff, again without mention of any hash value or providing us a cloned copy so that the normal financial work so central to the day-to-day functioning of a media organisation can continue uninterrupted,” they alleged.

Image courtesy: The Economic Times