In a sudden development, the Income Tax department is conducting a ‘survey’ operation in BBC’s Delhi office on Tuesday. According to reports, employees have been asked to leave the office and their phones have been seized.
A team of Income Tax Department sleuths carried out a ‘survey’ at the global media conglomerate BBC’s Mumbai studios and office in Delhi on Tuesday.
The BBC studio is situated in a commercial hub near the Bandra Kurla Complex in central Mumbai where offices of several national and multinational companies are also located.
A large number of media persons and photographers, besides many curious onlookers out for the lunch break, converged outside the studio building awaiting the nitty-gritty of the ITD operation inside the BBC studio.
Though no insiders were available for comments, the survey of the Mumbai studio is connected with an ongoing similar operation at the BBC offices in New Delhi, which sparked off a major political furore.
The survey comes after BBC broadcasted a two-part series documentary – India: The Modi Question – on the 2002 Gujarat riots when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the state’s chief minister. Thousands were killed and millions were left homeless, especially in the Muslim community.
It states that “Modi is directly responsible” for the riots that killed millions of people and displaced many, mostly Muslims. It also said the “violence was politically motivated” and the aim “was to purge Muslims from Hindu areas”. The riots were impossible “without the climate of impunity created by the state government.”
Opposition responds
Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said the ongoing surveys at the BBC Delhi office are a diversion to escape the Adani issue.
“Here we are demanding JPC on Adani… and the government is after BBC. Vinash kale viprit buddhi (when one’s destruction time is soon to arrive, one thinks un-intelligently or negatively),” he said.
Telangana’s IT minister and senior Bharat Rashtra Samithi party member K T Rama Rao tweeted about the raid sarcastically asking the Centre about their ‘next plan of action’.
“What a surprise!! A few weeks after they aired the documentary on Modi, BBC India now raided by IT Agencies like IT, CBI and ED have become laughing stock for turning into BJP’s biggest puppets What next? ED raids on Hindenberg or a hostile takeover attempt?” KTR tweeted.
Editors Guild response to the government’s ‘harassment’
Editors Guild of India expressed their deep concern over the IT “survey” being carried out at the offices of BBC India. It also expressed distress by “the continuing trend of government agencies being used to intimidate and harass news organisations that are critical of the ruling establishment.”
Offices of NewsClick and Newslaundry were similarly “surveyed” by the IT department. In June 2021, there were surveys against Dainik Bhaskar and Bharat Samachar. In February 2021, the ED conducted raids at the office of NewsClick. “In each case, the raids and surveys were against the backdrop of critical coverage of the government establishment by news organisations,” stated the EGI.
“This is a trend that undermines constitutional democracy.”
The Guild further reiterated that governments ensure that such investigations are conducted within the prescribed rules and that they don’t degenerate into instruments of harassment to intimidate independent media.
