Indian police have raided the offices of a news website that’s under investigation for allegedly receiving funds from China, as well as the homes of several of its journalists, in what critics have described as an attack on one of India’s few remaining independent news outlets.
Key points:
- NewsClick is being investigated over a claim that the website received funds from a millionaire who spread ‘Chinese propaganda’
- Indian police have raided the homes and offices of a number of its journalists
- The raids come after authorities searched the BBC’s New Delhi and Mumbai offices over accusations of tax evasion
NewsClick, founded in 2009, is known as a rare Indian news outlet willing to criticise Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A number of other news organisations have been investigated for financial impropriety under Mr Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, as international monitors warn that press freedom is eroding in India.
Indian authorities registered a case against NewsClick and its journalists on August 17, weeks after a New York Times report alleged that the website had received funds from an American millionaire who, the Times wrote, has funded the spread of “Chinese propaganda”. NewsClick has denied the charges.
The case was filed under a wide-ranging anti-terrorism law that allows charges for “anti-national activities” and has been used against activists, journalists and critics of Mr Modi, some of whom have spent years in jail before going to trial. No one has been arrested in connection with NewsClick so far.
Two people, including NewClick’s editor in chief Prabir Purkayastha, were detained during the raids, and police carried away boxes of documents.
At least two journalists whose houses were raided by Delhi police said their devices were seized.
“Delhi police landed at my home. Taking away my laptop and phone,” journalist Abhisar Sharma wrote on social media platform X.
Delhi police did not immediately respond for a comment, but India’s Junior Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Anurag Thakur, told reporters that “if anyone has committed anything wrong, search agencies are free to carry out investigations against them”.
In August, Mr Thakur accused NewsClick of spreading an “anti-India agenda”, citing the New York Times, and of working with the opposition Indian National Congress party. Both NewsClick and the Congress party denied the accusations.
Journalists ‘deeply concerned’
The Press Club of India (PCI) said it was “deeply concerned about the multiple raids conducted on the houses of journalists and writers associated with NewsClick”.
“The PCI stand in solidarity with the journalists and demands the government to come out with details,” it wrote in a statement on X.
The raid on NewsClick comes after Indian authorities searched the BBC’s New Delhi and Mumbai offices over accusations of tax evasion in February.
Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group for journalists, ranked India 161st in its press freedom rankings this year, writing that the situation in the country has deteriorated from “problematic” to “very bad”.
Ties between India and China have been strained since 2020, when clashes between the two militaries in a disputed border area killed at least 20 Indian troops and four Chinese soldiers. Since then, New Delhi has banned many Chinese-owned apps, including TikTok, and launched tax probes into some Chinese mobile phone companies.
Mr Modi’s administration has also introduced rules that require government approval for investments by companies from China and other countries that neighbour India.
AP