INDIA RAIDS BBC OFFICES AMID MODI DOCUMENTARY FALLOUT

Police officers stand outside the BBC’s office in New Delhi, India on February 14, 2023.

Tue 14 February 2023:

Just a few weeks after the release of a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which was subsequently banned by the government, India’s tax department authorities stormed the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai.

More than a dozen officials from the country’s income tax department showed up at the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai, where hundreds of staff members work, to conduct a “survey,” according to people employed by the broadcaster. The offices were sealed, and several journalists’ phones and documents were confiscated.

Officers told local media the searches on Tuesday morning were part of a tax evasion investigation into the business operations of the BBC in India and several accounts and financial files were seized.

The BBC confirmed the raids at the offices and said it was fully cooperating. “We hope to have this situation resolved as soon as possible,” said the statement.

HOW INDIA’S ATTEMPT TO BLOCK BBC DOCUMENTARY ON MODI BACKFIRED

The raids come as the BBC is at the centre of a controversy in India over a two-part documentary series, India: The Modi Question, which focused on the role that Modi, who was then the chief minister of Gujarat, played in violent Hindu-Muslim riots that ripped through his state in 2002 and left more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.

Modi has been followed for years by allegations of his complicity in the violence, and they led to him being banned from the US for almost a decade. The BBC documentary revealed that a British government document from the time had found Modi “directly responsible” for not stopping the killings of Muslims during the riots, and said the violence had “all the hallmarks of genocide”.

The series was not released in India but prompted an outcry from the Modi government, who accused the broadcaster of bias and a “colonial mindset”, pointing out that Modi was cleared of all charges by a supreme court panel in 2012.

Emergency laws were invoked to ban any links or clips of the documentary being shared on social media. In defiance of the ban, students across the country staged screenings of the documentary at universities and several were detained by police.

The BBC has stood firm by the documentary, stating that it was “rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards”.

The raids come amidst an increasingly pressured environment for media since Modi came to power in 2014. Journalists and news organisations that have published work critical of the BJP government have been hit with harassment, raids, criminal cases and tax investigations and the country has dropped down to 150 out 180 in the World Press Freedom Index.

Following the searches, Gaurav Bhatia, a spokesperson from Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), described the BBC as the “most corrupt organisation in the world” and accused them of “venomous, shallow and agenda-driven reporting”.

“If any company or organisation is working in India, they have to comply with the Indian law. Why are you scared if you are adhering to the law? The [tax] department should be allowed to do their work,” said Bhatia.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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