The three journalists and The Wire, a New Delhi-based news website regularly targeted by the authorities,  are all being prosecuted for their journalistic content on various charges, including under Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS, the Indian criminal code), which punishes “acts endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.” This controversial law is a revised version of an old colonial law on sedition, which carries penalties of up to life imprisonment.

On 9 May 2025, The Wire’s founder and editor-in-chief Siddharth Varadarajan and veteran journalist and consulting editor Karan Thapar were targeted by a complaint filed by a resident of Guwahati, the capital of Assam, with the local crime branch. The complaint concerned the publication of a dozen articles and interviews on the military escalation between India and Pakistan in the spring of 2025 following the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, a city in Indian-administered Kashmir.

A second complaint was filed on 11 July 2025 at the Morigaon district police station by a lawyer who is an active member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This complaint targeted The Wire and Siddharth Varadarajan with charges relating to another article, published on 28 June, reporting on comments made by an Indian defence attaché about the loss of a military aircraft during Operation Sindoor, a military offensive against Pakistan.

On 21 August, another New Delhi-based journalist, Abhisar Sharma, was targeted by a similar complaint after criticising the Chief Minister of Assam in a video posted on his YouTube channel on 8 August.

“The repeated use of the revised sedition law by the police in Assam, a state ruled by the BJP, is a blatant attack on press freedom. Targeting Siddharth Varadarajan and his colleagues at The Wire for their journalistic coverage of the military escalation between India and Pakistan, as well as freelance journalist Abhisar Sharma for his criticism of the government, amounts to criminalising journalism. RSF calls on the Assam police to immediately drop these absurd punitive charges against journalists producing reliable, independent information — such legal complaints are incompatible with democracy. The Indian authorities must put an end to the arbitrary use of Section 152 of the BNS and any other means used to legally harass media professionals.

The first complaint also mentioned Pakistani journalist Najam Sethi, founder and former editor of The Friday Times, and Ashutosh Bhardwaj, editor of The Wire Hindi. It also referred to a dozen articles and various journalists, former security officials and researchers who contributed to them, without directly implicating them. The complaint remained dormant — the concerned parties were not even informed of its existence — until 12 August, when the Guwahati Crime Branch sent summonses to Siddharth Varadarajan and Karan Thapar.

Protection from the Supreme Court

Just hours before the summons was sent, the Supreme Court had granted Siddharth Varadarajan and members of the Independent Journalism Foundation, which owns The Wire, protection from preventive detention in connection with the 11 July complaint. 

On 22 August, the Court granted further protection to Siddharth Varadarajan and the Foundation members, this time in connection with the first complaint filed on 9 May. However, the Supreme Court judges instructed the journalists to fully cooperate with the investigation.

The next hearing is scheduled for 15 September 2025 before the Supreme Court. Until then, the concerned journalists have temporary protection. The freelance journalist Abhisar Sharma also benefited from a four-week protective measure against arrest issued by the Supreme Court on 28 August.

The preferred weapon against journalism

The colonial law on sedition (Section 124A of the old Indian Penal Code) had been used on a regular basis to attack journalists, notably Fahad Shah and Siddique Kapan. Suspended in May 2022 by the Supreme Court due to repeated abuses, it resurfaced in 2023 in the form of Section 152 of the new Indian criminal code, the BNS. Since then, Section 152 has been used again to prosecute journalists, such as Alt News editor-in-chief Mohammed Zubair. On 12 August 2025, The Wire challenged this section in the Supreme Court, arguing that it “in essence” replicates the sedition law.