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Day After It Was Booked For Forgery By Cops, The Wire Files Criminal Complaint Against Its Reporter Devesh Kumar Claiming He Forged Documents
Less than 24 hours after The Wire came out with its first report, Meta dismissed the allegations, calling out the fabricated screenshots and the fake emails.
Online news portal The Wire, which is in the eye of a storm after cops booked it under various sections of IPC, including Section 420 for forgery and cheating, has filed a criminal complaint against its reporter and researcher Devesh Kumar with the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police.
"The complaint has been filed against Devesh Kumar who is allegedly involved in the fabrication of documents and forgery. This is in connection with all the Meta stories that were published this month," The Indian Express reported quoting a senior officer of Delhi Police. The cops are looking into the complaint and have not registered a case as yet.
The complaint by The Wire against Devesh Kumar comes a day after the portal's founding editors -S.Varadarajan, M.K Venu and Siddharth Bhatia- and deputy editor Jahnavi Sen were booked under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery with the purpose of cheating), 469 (forgery for harming reputation), 471 (using forged document), 500 (defamation), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention).
Devesh Kumar, till recently pitched by portal's editors as the in-house 'technology expert' and 'researcher', was part of the team that published a series of 'investigative' reports alleging that BJP has enormous powers with big tech platforms like Meta (x-check) and build software capability to silence critics on various social media platforms (TekFog).
The 'investigative' reports on Tek Fog and Meta stories were withdrawn from the website after it was established that it was based on fabricated emails and fake screenshots.
Devesh Kumar has deleted all his social media accounts after the allegations of fraudulent journalism by The Wire gained credence.
While initially claiming that The Wire has cultivated multiple whistleblowers within Meta, the portal now says that Devesh Kumar was their only conduit with the 'sources' based on which the report was published. It also alleges now that Devesh Kumar deceived them.
"Whether the person who brought all the material to The Wire deceived us at anyone else's behest or acted on his own is a matter that will be subjected to judicial process in due course. The malintent to discredit The Wire is obvious." a statement by The Wire read.
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