INDIAN COURT ISSUES BBC WITH SUMMONS OVER MODI DOCUMENTARY

Mon 22 May 2023:

A court in India has summoned the BBC in a defamation complaint involving its documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, local media reported.

The British broadcaster was served a summons by the Delhi High Court on Monday for a documentary film that criticized Modi’s handling of the 2002 Gujarat riots, which resulted in at least 1,000 deaths, the majority of them Muslims.

Activists put the death toll at more than twice that number.

Modi was the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014, the year he won the national elections and became the prime minister.

The defamation suit, filed by a non-profit based in Gujarat, states the documentary – India: The Modi Question – that aired earlier this year cast a slur on India’s reputation and that of its judiciary and the prime minister, the reports said.

The summons came months after Indian tax officials inspected the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai in February following an angry response by the Indian government to the documentary.

Modi has denied accusations that he did not do enough to stop the riots and a Supreme Court-ordered investigation found no evidence to prosecute him.

A petition seeking a new investigation was dismissed by the Supreme Court last year.

The government called the documentary, which was banned in India, a biased “propaganda piece” and blocked sharing of any clips from it on social media.

The BBC has previously said it “does not have an agenda” and has stood by its reporting for the documentary.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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