Protester death: FIR lodged against The Wire editor, Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi, Feb 01: An FIR was lodged against Siddharth Varadarajan, the editor of news website, The Wire at Rampur's Civil Lines Police Station for posting on Twitter a report to allegedly misleading people over the death of a protester on January 26.

The FIR was registered on a complaint filed by Sanju Turaiha, a resident of Rampur under Section 153B of the Indian Penal Code (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) and 505(2) (statements creating or promoting enmity between classes)

"It has come to my notice through social media that a person named Siddharth Varadarajan posted on Twitter that Hardeep Singh Dibdibiya, grandfather of Navreet Singh Dibdibiya, who died during the protest against farm bills in Delhi, said he was told by a doctor, from the panel of doctors which conducted the post-mortem, that the youth had died due to a bullet injury. And that the doctor's hands were tied and hence, he could not do anything. In the tweet, the so-called report that has been cited tries to give the impression that it is the quote of the doctor, which is intended to mislead people. This has led to anger among the common people in Rampur and given rise to tension," the complainant said.

The complainant alleged that the Twitter post was part of a conspiracy to cause harm to the common people, gain publicity and instigate violence. "The post-mortem of Navreet was done by a panel of three doctors and the report was sent to the Rampur Superintendent of Police (SP) and the officials concerned in a sealed envelope. The doctors have not given any statement regarding the autopsy to anyone and the post-mortem was also videographed," the complainant also said.

The complainant further said that the thought all the three doctors had contradicted the report, the tweet was not removed. A statement by the three doctors said that they had not made any remarks on the post-mortem of Navreet Singh to anyone including the media.

Singh had died of head injuries on January 26, when his tractor toppled after hitting a police barricade.

The post-mortem had ruled out any bullet injuries.

Shogun Gautam, SP, Rampur said that the police had received the complaint and lodged the FIR under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. We will be adding the name of the reporter who wrote the news report to the FIR, Gautam also said.