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NEW DELHI – Indian tax authorities raided the BBC and confiscated its journalists’ phones in a stunning – and apparently retaliatory – strike on the British broadcaster on Tuesday, weeks after it aired a polarizing documentary examining the rise of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Two BBC journalists in New Delhi, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said their colleagues’ phones were being confiscated. Indian media reported that more than 50 Indian officers raided the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai on Tuesday midday.
An Indian official familiar with the case confirmed the BBC’s financial investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
in one tweet, the BBC confirmed that the tax authorities were staying at their offices in New Delhi and Mumbai. “We hope that this situation will be resolved as soon as possible,” it said.
Censorship, arrests, blackouts. India scrambles to block BBC documentary
Gaurav Bhatia, a spokesman for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, told reporters the BBC “must comply with Indian laws” and called the organization “corrupt” without giving details, instead listing a litany of perceived problems with its reporting .
“The BBC’s work has historically been tainted with its hatred of India,” Bhatia said. “Our Constitution allows them unbiased journalism, but let me show you how they use journalism as an excuse to advance their agenda.”
The raids came less than a month after the Modi government took extraordinary measures to censor India: The Modi Question, a BBC film that resurfaced decades-old claims that Modi had failed to end a bloody riot stop in the state of Gujarat while he was serving as chief minister in 2002.
After the documentary aired in the UK on January 17, Indian authorities cracked down on the BBC for producing “propaganda”, invoking emergency powers to force social media companies to link to the BBC’s videos remove, and arrested student protesters who organized parties across campuses across the country.
In recent weeks, Modi’s supporters have questioned why the BBC has taken up the issue again, even though Indian judges acquitted him in 2013 of supporting the uprising that killed more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims.
Some right-wing Indian organizations, including the Hindu Sena, have asked the courts to ban the BBC, while other pro-government broadcasters, including Republic TV, have promoted a conspiracy theory that the British broadcaster is an agent of the Chinese Communist Party. (In China, the BBC is often criticized by government officials, and its journalists are occasionally attacked by security forces.)
Indian media outlets that have published reports that have drawn the government’s ire have often faced tax audits.
Cheating allegations against Gautam Adani provoke nationalist backlash in India
In 2021, tax authorities raided the offices of newspaper group Dainik Bhaskar after the Hindi-language broadsheet repeatedly questioned the government’s account of its successful handling of the coronavirus pandemic, reported on bodies floating in the Ganges and published photos of crowds on the front page Pyre.
The New Delhi Television Network, known for its independent reporting, was also under investigation in 2017 over alleged financial wrongdoing. And Newsclick, a left-leaning newspaper that has published critical reports on issues including billionaire and Modi ally Gautam Adani, was accused of receiving money tied to China in 2021.
In the 2022 edition of Reporters Without Borders’ annual Press Freedom Index, India fell to 150th out of 180 countries.