On 31st January, Uttar Pradesh Police filed an FIR against The Wire’s Founding Editor Siddharth Varadarajan for tweeting an article on the farmer who died during the Republic Day mayhem.
Mr. Varadarajan had shared the article with a direct quote by Hardeep Singh Dibdiba —the deceased youth’s grandfather.
Responding to his tweet, the Rampur district magistrate, on 30 January wrote, “We ardently request you to please let’s be sticking to facts and facts only,” he wrote. “We hope our request will be sincerely taken up by you.”
According to a copy of the post mortem report available with The Quint, Navreet Singh died of “haemorrhage as a result” of “ante-mortem head injury”. Video footage released by Delhi Police purportedly showing Singh’s tractor hitting a barricade and flipping over, however, protesters have counter-alleged that Singh lost control of his vehicle only after being shot.
Late Friday evening, a journalist was detained by Delhi Police from the Singhu border for ‘allegedly’ misbehaving with a station house officer on duty at the farmers’ protest site. Mandeep Punia, a freelance journalist and contributor to the Caravan magazine was reporting on the farmer-police clashes that broke out at Singhu on Friday when he was detained.
Dharmender Singh, another journalist from Online News India, was also picked by the police. Some media reports said that Singh was released by police after showing his identity card, while some reports suggested that both Punia and Singh were taken to Alipur police station, reported.
The political editor of Caravan magazine, Hartosh Singh Bal, tweeted that an FIR has been filed under various sections including section 186 ( (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of the Indian Penal Code. He said that the necessary legal course will be taken for his colleague.
“We’ve learnt Mandeep had spent the morning trying to track down those from BJP claiming to be ‘locals’ at Singhu,” he said.
The tensions at the protest site escalated when a group of 200 people gathered at the site and began pelting stones despite high security, The group of people are suspected to be the supporters of Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP).
Punia had posted a video on Facebook, hours after his detention, giving a detailed account about the violence at Singhu border. The journalist spoke about how the group was shouting “anti-farmer” slogans, had pelted stones at the protest site despite the presence of the police.