Delhi Police searches residences of The Wire founders Siddharth Varadarajan, M K Venu

The Delhi Police on Monday conducted searches at news portal The Wire’s office and at the homes of its founders, Siddharth Vardarajan, Sidharth Bhatia and M K Venu, and deputy political editor Jahnavi Sen. Senior police officers said electronic devices were seized from the portal’s New Delhi office as well as the residences. Bhatia is based in Mumbai while the other three reside in Delhi.

This comes two days after BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya lodged a complaint against The Wire and the editors for “tarnishing his reputation” with their now retracted report that he used his special privileges at tech giant Meta to take down over 700 social media posts.