New Delhi: The Delhi Police has sealed the office of news portal NewsClick in connection with its probe into a case filed under the anti-terror law UAPA following allegations that it received money for pro-China propaganda.
The Delhi Police’s special cell searched 30 locations connected with the news portal and its journalists on Tuesday.
The police said no one has so far been arrested during the searches concentrated in Delhi-NCR. Founder and editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha was taken to the portal’s south Delhi office where a forensic team was present.
Among those questioned were journalists Urmilesh, Aunindyo Chakravarty, Abhisar Sharma, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta as well as historian Sohail Hashmi. The police posed a list of 25 questions to them relating to various issues, including their foreign travels, protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh as well as the farmers’ agitation, sources said.
The houses of former and current employees of NewsClick were also raided. They were questioned regarding their past and current news reports including the COVID-19 coverage and farmers’ protests.
Delhi Police sources said the raids, still ongoing, are based on a case registered on August 17 under UAPA and other sections of IPC.
It invokes several sections (13, 16, 17, 18, and 22) of UAPA, along with 153(a) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and 120 (b) (party to a criminal conspiracy other than a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence) of the Indian Penal Code.
Journalist bodies condemn raids
Various organisations representing the interests of journalists condemned the Delhi Police raids on news portal NewsClick and its scribes claiming that it was an attempt to “muzzle” press freedom.
Press Club of India, Network of Women in Media, India (NWMIndia) has expressed shock over the raids. Tweeting about the incident, NWMIndia said, “Journalists, activists and artists who speak truth to power are being unrelentingly harassed and persecuted by the government, while pliant and sycophantic media persons and media houses are being nurtured. This campaign to quell dissent has to stop.”
Amnesty India also expressed shock over the use of UAPA against journalists and activists and urged the Centre to respect the right to freedom of expression.
The Editors Guild of India tweeted grave concerns over the raids and subsequent detaining of senior NewsClick journalists. “EGI is deeply concerned about the raids at the residences of senior journalists on the morning of October 3, and the subsequent detention of many of those journalists. Urges the state to follow due process, and not to make draconian criminal laws as tools for press intimidation,”
DIGIPUB News India Foundation said, “They have been detained, their phones and laptops seized. This is another instance of the government’s pattern of arbitrary and intimidatory behaviour. We are keeping an eye on developments.”
In a separate statement, the National Alliance of Journalists, the Delhi Union of Journalists and the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (Delhi unit) condemned the police raids.
