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An FIR has been lodged against NDTV News Anchor Rajdeep Sardesai, Mrinal Pande (Editorial Advisor, National Herald Group), Zafar Agha (Editor In Chief, Quami Awaz), Paresh Nath, Anant Nath, Vinod K. Jose (of Caravan) alleging that they had indulged in inciting people to indulge in violence with their misinformed reporting concerning the Tractor Rally violence in the capital.

Arpit Mishra, the complainant has lodged an FIR at PS Gautam Buddh Nagar under sections 153(A) [Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony], 153(B) [Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration], 295(A) Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage reli­gious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or reli­gious beliefs, 298 [Uttering, words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person] IPC and other relevant provisions against the aforementioned persons.

The contents of the FIR read that the named persons on January 26, falsely and with an intention to instigate people to riot, reported on their platforms as well as on social media handles, including from twitter that a farmer had been killed by the Delhi Police.

"This was done intentionally and with bad faith so that riots would get triggered on a large scale," the FIR reads.

Further, the contents read that the acts done by the persons were carried out in order to create rifts and tensions between various segments of the society and to cause religious disturbances. 

"The accused indulged in incitement for purposes of instigating riots for their personal and political gains and the misinformation was spread intentionally and with a motive to trigger rioting." the complainant avers.

It is further stated, inter alia, that the aforementioned persons indulged in these alleged acts so that the image of India gets destroyed and a tense atmosphere is created, also painting the image of Delhi police in a negative light.