“Facts must not be the casualty in any conflict,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Blocking The Wire’s website and the social media accounts of other news outlets is an alarming attempt to stifle critical journalism at a time when independent reporting is more essential than ever. We call on the Indian government to immediately lift the blockade on The Wire and cease using national security concerns as an excuse to suppress media freedom.”

The internet block coincides with a significant escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan, which have traded fire across their frontier in disputed Kashmir this week. India blames its neighbor for the April 22 killing of 26, mostly Hindu, tourists.

The Wire criticized the blocking as “arbitrary and inexplicable” and a violation of the constitutional guarantee of press freedom. Internet Service Providers told The Wire that they had received orders to block the site under a government directive issued under the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The social media platform X said it had received executive orders to block over 8,000 accounts in India, including the Kashmir-based news outlets Free Press Kashmir and The Kashmiriyat and Maktoob Media, which focuses on human rights and minorities.

Separately, on May 7, The Hindu newspaper said it had deleted a post on X, which reported that three Indian jets had crashed in Jammu and Kashmir, because it did not have “on-record official information.”      

Journalist Hilal Mir has been placed under preventive detention until May 13 for allegedly spreading anti-national content and promoting secessionist ideology online.

In late April, the government blocked one Indian and 19 Pakistani YouTube channels, one journalist was assaulted and two political commentators and satirists face legal action over their coverage of the Kashmir attack. The information ministry has banned live coverage of anti-terrorist operations, citing security risks.

CPJ’s emailed requests to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for comment did not receive an immediate response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

On Monday, officials with the Delhi police crime branch searched the New Delhi office of The Wire and the residences of editors Siddharth Vardarajan, M.K. Venu, Siddharth Bhatia, and Jahanavi Sen, seized their electronic devices, according to various news reports and Vardarajan, who spoke to CPJ over phone. 

The searches were in relation to a police investigation into The Wire based on a complaint from Amit Malviya, an official with the ruling Bharatiya Janata party, Vardarajan said.

Malviya has accused Vardarajan, Venu, Bhatia, and Sen of cheating, forgery, and defamation in relation to a series of articles, in which The Wire had claimed that Malviya had special privilege to remove any posts from Instagram, according The Hindu. 

Both Malviya and Meta, which owns Instagram, denied the accusation and The Wire later retracted the articles, claiming that it was  misled by one of its reporters, and began a review of the incident, according to Scroll.in. 

“The raids on the homes of The Wire editors is an excessive reaction by the Indian authorities,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Frankfurt, Germany. “The Wire has voluntarily withdrawn its reportage on Meta and Amit Malviya, apologized to its readers, and initiated an internal review. We call on authorities and politicians to cease the harassment.”

During the raid, the police seized phones, laptops and iPads belonging to Vardarajan, Venu, and Bhatia, as well as a junior video editor, the news reports said. The raid at The Wire office lasted for about six hours, and was conducted by 25 officers who refused the outlet’s lawyer entry to the premises and confiscated computers used for video editing and a hard disk containing information such as employee salaries, according to Vardarajan. 

On Sunday, The Wire filed a complaint against its researcher Devesh Kumar with the economic offenses wing of the Delhi police, accusing him of fabricating documents that were used to substantiate the publication’s reporting on Meta and Malviya, according to Indian Express.

Delhi police spokesperson Suman Nalwa and Malviya did not respond to CPJ’s text messages requesting comment. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Earlier it was just one conversation they [authorities] would tap into,” Venu told CPJ in a phone interview. “They wouldn’t see what you would be doing in your bedroom or bathroom. The scale was stunning.”

The Indian journalists were among scores around the world who learned from the Pegasus Project in July 2021 that they, along with human rights activists, lawyers, and politicians, had been targeted for possible surveillance by Pegasus, the spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group. (The company denies any connection with the Project’s list and says that it only sells its product to vetted governments with the goal of preventing crime or terrorism.) 

The Pegasus Project found that the phones of two founding editors of The Wire – Venu and Siddharth Vardarajan – were confirmed by forensic analysis to have been infected with Pegasus. Four other journalists associated with the outlet – diplomatic editor Devirupa Mitra, and contributors Rohini Singh, Prem Shankar Jha, and Swati Chaturvedi – were listed as potential targets.

The Indian government denies that it has engaged in unauthorized surveillance, but has not commented directly on a January New York Times report that Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to buy Pegasus during a 2017 visit to Israel. The Indian government has not cooperated with an ongoing inquiry by an expert committee appointed by the country’s Supreme Court to investigate illegal use of spyware. In late August, the court revealed that the committee had found malware in five out of the 29 devices it examined, but could not confirm that it was Pegasus.

However, Indian journalists interviewed by CPJ had no doubt that it was the government behind any efforts to spy on them. “This government is obsessed with journalists who are not adhering to their cheerleading,” investigative reporter Chaturvedi told CPJ via messaging app. “My journalism has never been personal against anyone. I don’t understand why it is so personal to this government.” For Chaturvedi, the spying was an invasion of privacy “so heinous that how do you put it in words.” 

Read CPJ’s complete special report: When spyware turns phones into weapons

Overall, the Pegasus Project found that at least 40 journalists were among the 174 Indians named as potential targets of surveillance. With six associated with The Wire, the outlet was the country’s most targeted newsroom. The Wire has long been a thorn in the side of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for its reporting on allegations of corruption by party officials, the party’s alleged promotion of sectarian violence, and its alleged use of technology to target government critics online. As a result, various BJP-led state governments, BJP officials, and their affiliates have targeted the website’s journalists with police investigations, defamation suits, online doxxing, and threats.

Indian home ministry and BJP spokespeople have not responded to CPJ’s email and text messages requesting comment. However after the last Supreme Court hearing, party spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia criticized the opposition for “trying to create an atmosphere of fear” in India. “They [Congress party] were trying to spread propaganda that citizens’ privacy has been invaded. The Supreme Court has made it clear that no conclusive evidence has been found to show the presence of Pegasus spyware in the 29 phones scanned,” he said.

As in so many other newsrooms around the world, the Pegasus Project revelations have prompted The Wire to introduce stricter security protocols, including the use of encrypted software, to protect its journalists as well as its sources.

Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta, political editor at The Wire, told CPJ in a phone interview that as part of the new procedures, “we would not talk [about sensitive stories] on the phone.” While working on the Pegasus project, the Wire newsroom was extra careful. “When we were meeting, we kept our phones in a separate room. We were also not using our general [office] computers,” he said.

Venu told CPJ that while regular editorial meetings at The Wire are held via video call, sensitive stories are discussed in person. “We take usual precautions like occasional reboot, keep phones away when we meet anyone. What else can we do?” he asks.

Chaturvedi told CPJ via messaging app that she quickly started using a new phone when she learned from local intelligence sources that she might have been under surveillance. As an investigative journalist, her immediate concern following the Pegasus Project disclosures was to avoid compromising her sources. “In Delhi, everyone I know who is in a position of power no longer talks on normal calls,” she said. “The paranoia is not just us who have been targeted with Pegasus.”

“Since the last five years, any important source I’m trying to talk to as a journalist will not speak to me on a normal regular call,” said Arfa Khanum Sherwani, who anchors a popular political show for The Wire and is known as a critic of Hindu right-wing politics. Sherwani told CPJ that her politician sources were the first ones who moved to communicate with her on encrypted messaging platforms even before the revelations as they “understood that something like this was at play.”

Rohini Singh similarly told CPJ that she doesn’t have any conversations related to her stories over the phone and leaves it behind when she meets people out reporting. “It is not about protecting myself. Ultimately it is going to be my story and my byline would be on it. I’m essentially protecting people who might be giving me information,” she said. 

Journalists also say they are concerned about the safety of their family members.

“After Pegasus, even though my name per se was not part of the whole thing, my friends and family members did not feel safe enough to call me or casually say something about the government. Because they feel that they are also being audiographed and videographed [filmed or recorded],” said Sherwani.

Chaturvedi told CPJ that her family has been “terrified” since the revelations. “Both my parents were in the government service. They can’t believe that this is the same country,” she said.

Venu and Sherwani both expressed concerns about how the atmosphere of fear could affect coverage by less-experienced journalists starting out in their careers. “The simple pleasure of doing journalism got affected. This may lead to self-censorship. When someone gets attacked badly, that journalist can start playing safe,” said Venu.

Said Sherwani: “For someone like me with a more established identity and career, I would be able to get people [to talk to me], but for younger journalists it will be much more difficult to contact politicians and speak to them. Whatever they say has to be on record, so you will see less and less source-based stories.”

Ashirwad agreed. “I’m very critical of this government, which is known. My stand now is I shall not say anything in private which I’m not comfortable saying in public,” he said.  

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Kunal Majumder/CPJ India Representative.

Such surveys examine a group’s balance sheets to search for irregularities, those reports said, noting that authorities had not disclosed a reason for the action. On the same day, tax authorities also conducted surveys at the offices of the Center for Policy Research think tank and Oxfam India, a charity organization, according to those news reports.

The Digipub News India Foundation, a trade body of Indian digital media organizations, said in a statement that the tax survey was part of an inquiry into alleged violations of regulations concerning foreign financial contributions. That statement condemned the raid on the IPSMF as an “assault on independent journalism.”

IPSMF has provided grants to privately owned online news outlets, including Alt News, Article14, The Caravan, Swarajya, and The Wire, according to those news reports.

Since 2018, tax authorities have also raided news outlets including Newslaundry, The Quint, and Newsclick, as CPJ has documented.

CPJ emailed the Indian Income Tax Department for comment but did not immediately receive any response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The site, named by combining a vulgar, derogatory slang for Muslim women (bulli) with the Hindi word for female servant (bai), operated by pulling the target’s publicly available photos and contact information from social media and offering     the women for sale in a demeaning fake auction publicized on Twitter.      

The Twitter account that initially tagged Khan has since been suspended, as has the app and its predecessor app Sulli Deals, which also featured Khan among about 30 Muslim journalists, politicians and activists. Both apps shared personal information about the women and were built on the Microsoft-owned software development platform GitHub, which announced earlier this month that it had suspended a user account for violating company policies.

CPJ identified more than 20 journalists among the women targeted by Bulli Bai’s creators. Besides having gender and religion in common, all have reported critically on how the central BJP government’s policies have impacted religious minorities.      Most are in their 20s, new to the profession, and have faced backlash on social media. In the past, women reporting in India have told CPJ that while such abuse appears spontaneous, many account-holders who were involved self-identify as BJP supporters, and their activity aligns with the ruling party’s Hindu nationalist ideology. (Sambit Patra and Syed Zafar Islam, national spokespeople for the BJP, did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment on these allegations.)

Police say they have arrested the creators of both apps. News reports said they claimed no political affiliation, but The Wirenews website reported this month that at least one similar app, Tek Fog, was still secretly in operation, citing screenshots shared by a whistleblower who said they were a former BJP employee. Tek Fog features many of the same journalists as Bulli Bai, including Khan, but is not available to the general public; it also suggests offensive language for users to share about the women involved and ways to magnify those messages on social media, according to The Wire.

CPJ’s Kunal Majumder spoke to three women who appeared in both Bulli Bai and Tek Fog about the nature of their reporting, and the impact of abuse on their work: Fatima Khan; Ismat Ara, a Delhi-based journalist for the news website The Wire; and Quratulain Rehbar, a freelance journalist based in Kashmir.

Fatima Khan, 24, The Quint, New Delhi

(Photo: Fatima Khan)

Khan found her photo listed as “Bulli bai of the day” last December after she returned from reporting in neighboring Haryana on the increase in hate crimes against Christians under the state’s ruling Hindu nationalist BJP.

“My name itself is enough to rile up these people,” Khan told CPJ. “I know many Hindu journalists who are covering similar issues and they get their fair share of hate – but if they had a Muslim name, I can only imagine how much worse it would be.”

Before moving to The Quint, Khan began her career with The Print news website in 2018, reporting on gender and hate crimes, including a series on the killings and violence against Muslims in the aftermath of the protests against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, which human rights groups have accused of discriminating against Muslims.

In 2020, she reported on the sectarian riots in Delhi and was threatened by a Hindu-right wing mob while reporting. Her colleague called her by a fake Hindu nameto save her from being attacked, she told CPJ.

Khan said that as a working journalist, a woman and a Muslim, she frequently faces abuse. “My DMs would be filled with something nasty at any given point of time,” she said. However, she described feeling concerned at the apps’ concerted and organized efforts to target her.

Khan hadn’t thought much about how the harassment could affect her offline until someone recognized her in the field reporting on upcoming Uttar Pradesh state elections, she said.

“My immediate reaction wasn’t happiness to be recognized. My thought was, ‘Is he someone who doesn’t like me? Or part of one of those apps or that ecosystem?” I imagine this is not how every journalist would react.”

Ismat Ara, 23, The Wire, New Delhi

(Photo: Ismat Ara)

In February 2020, Ara first experienced online abuse after she wrote a first-person account of being threatened by a mob while reporting on the Delhi riots. “I got a lot of hate messages on Facebook,” she told CPJ in a phone interview.

The attention didn’t stop after she joined The Wire in August 2020, reporting on politically and religiously sensitive issues including the aftermath of the 2020 Delhi riots, which claimed the lives of at least 50 people, the majority of whom were Muslim; the alleged gang rape and murder of a Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh, contradicting the police’s claim that the incident was an honor killing; the national farmers’ protest against two controversial laws approved by the BJP-controlled parliament; and a conspiracy theory called “Love Jihad,” which purports that Muslim men target Hindu women for conversion to Islam by means of marriage.

“Never in my life have I faced so much trolling as I have in the last two years,” Ara said.

“However, for me, it is not worth [my time]. What really angered me [about Bulli Bai app] was the impunity [with] which the people behind these apps operated.”

On January 1 this year, Ara became the first victim to file a complaint about the Bulli Bai app with the Cyber Cell of the Delhi police.

“I get threatened online all the time. [But] what if my photo is circulated on the ground? Even if there is a 0.01% chance, if it puts me at risk and stops me from doing my job [as a journalist], which I absolutely love to do, then it is very sad.” 

Quratulain Rehbar, 27, freelance, Srinagar

(Photo: Quratulain Rehbar)

Rehbar, who began working as a freelance journalist after India revoked the political autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, is among the few women reporting in the volatile region. She has contributed to news websites including VICE, Firstpost, and The Wire, but never took online harassment seriously until personal details gleaned from her Twitter account were exposed by the makers of Bulli Bai, she told CPJ.

“Working in Kashmir is very different from working in Delhi or Mumbai,” she said. “I know those journalists also have their struggles. It is very difficult to work in Kashmir. There was always this fear of security, surveillance and intimidation, and now online doxxing and trolling.”

Rehbar experiences more abuse after reporting on human rights issues, especially for international outlets, she said. Her story on women in Kashmir impacted by the communication shutdown in 2019 was one of the first to meet with hostility

Already under pressure from local authorities for doing her job, Rehbar described the situation for women journalists in the region as a “double assault,” with authorities on one side, and Hindu nationalists on the other.

 “I used to think that I’m a journalist so [trolling] is fine,” she said. “However, this time [with Bulli Bai], it has become too much. My energy is drained. This has taken a serious toll on my mental health. I have been struggling to do my work.”

[Editor’s note: The third paragraph of Fatima Khan’s interview and the first paragraph of Quratulain’s interview have been updated to correct their career timelines.]

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Kunal Majumder/CPJ India Correspondent.

On June 30, and then repeatedly in mid-July, police have threatened, harassed, and obstructed media workers covering protests and demolitions in the village of Khori Gaon, in the Faridabad district of Haryana, according to news reports and seven media workers, who spoke with CPJ in phone interviews.

On July 14, government authorities began demolishing homes that were allegedly built illegally in Khori Gaon, and police have arrested local residents opposed to the demolitions, according to news reports.

“Journalists have a right to cover the ongoing demolitions in the Indian village of Khori Gaon without facing threats, harassment, and intimidation for their work,” said Robert Mahoney, CPJ’s deputy executive director. “Authorities must ensure that the media can report freely on the demolitions and all matters of public interest without fear of violence or arrest.”

On June 30, multiple police officers repeatedly and aggressively told Sumedha Pal, a reporter at the news website Newsclick, to stop filming a group of villagers who gathered to share testimonies about the planned demolitions with the media, according to Pal, who spoke to CPJ, and videos of the incidents, which CPJ reviewed.

A senior police officer ordered another officer to confiscate Pal’s phone while she filmed police attacking the demonstrators with batons, according to those sources. When an officer attempted to grab her phone, Pal stopped filming and fled the scene, she said.

On July 15, police again repeatedly told Pal to stop filming at a protest site in the village, she told CPJ. A police officer attempted to block her camera as she filmed, as seen in a video she posted to Twitter that day.

Also that day, police forced Mohit Kumar, a Newsclick camera operator, to leave a crowd of protesters and move to another location, placed a baton between his feet to stop him from moving, and threatened him, saying, “we can do anything to you,” according to Kumar, who also spoke to CPJ. Police then told him to leave the area, and he complied, Kumar said.

Multiple police officers also threatened to break and confiscate Kumar’s camera and delete its footage on July 15, according to Pal and Kumar, who both said that they carried their press identification cards and repeatedly identified themselves as members of the press to police.

Also that day, two police officers armed with batons approached Hrishikesh Sharma, a reporter at the YouTube-based news channel Mojo Story, while he was filming a home that was about to be demolished, and threatened to break his phone if he did not stop filming and leave the area, he told CPJ. Sharma continued to discretely film in another area, he said.

Multiple police officers threatened to break the camera of Prabhat Kumar, a freelance journalist who filmed demolitions in the area, Kumar told CPJ, adding that an officer threatened to arrest him if he did not stop filming. Police also locked Kumar in a building after he had ascended to a terrace to film a protest, he said, adding that local residents opened the door and allowed him to leave about 15 minutes later.

On July 16, police officers armed with guns and batons threatened to arrest Naomi Barton, an audience editor with the news website The Wire who was reporting on the demolitions, if she did not stop filming at a demolition site, she told CPJ. Barton showed officers her press identification card but they insisted she leave the area, and she complied, she said.

Also that day, an unidentified individual in plain clothes approached Nikita Jain, a freelance journalist, and told her not to take pictures at a demolition site, and threatened to inform the police if she did not stop, she said.

A group of about 10 police officers surrounded Jain as she attempted to leave the village, and a senior officer told her that press coverage was prohibited in the area, she said. When Jain asked that officer to show her an official order prohibiting coverage, he refused and instructed Jain to show him her phone and delete its footage, she said, adding that she refused to comply.

That officer then instructed a group of female officers to escort Jain to another area, and told them to beat her if she resisted; the officers pushed Jain to another area, where a police officer threatened to break her phone and others ordered her to enter their car, she said. Jain told CPJ that she refused to comply and left the village on her own.

Yesterday, two police officers approached Sumit Yadav, an independent journalist who operates The Tsunami, a YouTube political news channel that has covered the demolitions, while he was interviewing local residents, escorted him out of the area, forcibly confiscated his phone, and deleted footage he had taken, he told CPJ. They also threatened to investigate him for attempted murder in retaliation for his coverage, he said.

CPJ emailed Faridabad Police Commissioner O.P. Singh for comment, but did not receive any reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On July 3, the police headquarters of the Kashmir zone issued a legal notice to Varadarajan, editor-in-chief of the independent news website The Wire, indicating that police were considering legal action against the outlet for allegedly “propagating concocted stories” and “rumor mongering,” and requesting Varadarajan’s response to those allegations within one week, according to a copy of the order, which CPJ reviewed, and Varadarajan, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

The police document cites a June 7 article regarding the killing of a Kashmiri resident in police custody, and a June 28 article on the killing of a police officer in the region’s Pulwama district. Varadarajan told CPJ that The Wire stood by both stories.

“Jammu and Kashmir authorities’ notice threatening legal action against journalist Siddarth Varadarajan only adds to the ongoing targeted harassment of The Wire in obvious retaliation for its critical reporting,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Authorities should immediately withdraw the notice and allow The Wire and all media outlets to report freely on issues of public interest.”

Rohit Kansal, a Jammu and Kashmir government spokesperson, did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app. CPJ also emailed Kashmir Police Inspector-General Vijay Kumar for comment, but did not receive any reply.  

Last month, police in the state of Uttar Pradesh opened a criminal investigation into The Wire and three other journalists for allegedly sharing an unverified video that could cause social unrest, as CPJ documented at the time.

Previously, in April 2020, Uttar Pradesh police filed a criminal complaint against Varadarajan for allegedly spreading discord, enmity, and rumors during the COVID-19 lockdown.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Yesterday, Uttar Pradesh police filed a criminal complaint stating that they were opening a investigation into The Wire as well as Ayyub, a Washington Post columnist; Naqvi, a freelance journalist; and Zubair, co-founder of the fact-checking website Alt News, according to various news reports and a copy of the complaint, which CPJ reviewed.

The complaint alleges that the three journalists and the news outlet, as well as several politicians from the opposition Congress Party, shared an unverified video that could cause social unrest.

“Indian authorities singling out journalists, some of whom are known for critical coverage of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, for sharing and commenting on a video looks suspiciously like selective law enforcement and amounts to a serious attack on press freedom,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Uttar Pradesh police must withdraw their complaint immediately and stop harassing journalists and news outlets.”

On June 14, The Wire and many other leading news outlets reported on a widely shared video from Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad district, which allegedly depicted a group of Hindu men beating an elderly Muslim man, cutting off his beard, and forcing him to chant a Hindu slogan. Ayyub, Naqvi, and Zubair tweeted about the video, according to those news reports and the complaint.

The complaint, filed by an inspector at the Loni Border police station in Ghaziabad, accuses Ayyub, Naqvi, and Zubair of posting tweets police alleged were misleading and unverified.

The complaint states that police are investigating the three journalists and The Wire for violating Sections 153 (provocation to cause a riot), 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups), 295A (insulting religious beliefs), 505 (public mischief), and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian penal code.

Each of those sections carry prison penalties of up to one year for convictions, except for criminal conspiracy, which carries up to two years, according to the Indian penal code.

In posts on Twitter after the criminal complaint was filed, Ayyub, Naqvi, and Zubair noted that their descriptions of the video were based on initial news reports.

CPJ texted Uttar Pradesh Police Director-General Hitesh Awasthy for comment but did not receive any reply.

Last year, Uttar Pradesh police filed opened criminal investigations into The Wire’s Siddharth Vardarajan for allegedly “spreading discord” related to the COVID-19 lockdown, as CPJ documented at the time.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.