The Editors Guild of India denounced the move, saying it continues “a trend of using government agencies to intimidate and harass press organizations that are critical of government policies …
NEW DELHI — India’s tax officials searched BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai on Tuesday, weeks after it aired a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the U.K., the broadcaster said.
“Many staff have now left the building but some have been asked to remain and are continuing to cooperate with the ongoing inquiries,” it said, adding: “Our output and journalism continues as normal.”The tax department was looking at documents related to the BBC’s business operations and its Indian arm, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, citing unidentified sources.
The Indian authorities are clearly trying to harass and intimidate the BBC over its critical coverage of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party,” Patel said. The documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” was broadcast in the U.K. last month, examining the prime minister’s role in 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the western state of Gujarat, where he was chief minister at the time. More than 1,000 people were killed in the violence.
The program drew an immediate backlash from India’s government, which invoked emergency powers under its information technology laws to block it from being shown in the country. Local authorities scrambled to stop screenings organized at Indian universities, and social media platforms including Twitter and YouTube complied with government requests to remove links to the documentary.
India’s Foreign Ministry called the documentary a “propaganda piece designed to push a particularly discredited narrative” that lacked objectivity.
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