Indian Taxmen Raid BBC Offices After Broadcast Of Modi Documentary

Officials from India’s Income Tax Department searched the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023, weeks after it broadcast a controversial documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the British broadcaster said, Krutika Pathi reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: Last month, the BBC broadcast a documentary in the UK entitled “India: The Modi Question” that examined Modi’s role during 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the western state of Gujarat, where he was chief minister at the time.

BBC said it was cooperating fully. “We hope to have this situation resolved as soon as possible,” it said in a statement. Teams from the tax department are looking at documents related to the BBC’s business operations and its Indian arm, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported, citing unidentified sources.

Indian tax authorities declined to comment, Associated Press journalists Sheikh Saaliq and Piyush Nagpal also reported.

Rights groups and opposition politicians denounced the move as an intimidation tactic intended to quash the media.

The search continues “a trend of using government agencies to intimidate and harass press organizations that are critical of government policies or the ruling establishment,” the Editors Guild of India said.

The investigation is “undemocratic” and “reeks of desperation and shows the government is scared of criticism,” tweeted K.C. Venugopal, general secretary of the opposition Congress party.

“We condemn these intimidation tactics in the harshest terms.” Gaurav Bhatia, a spokesperson for Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, said the BBC shouldn’t have anything to fear if it follows Indian laws.

But he added that the history of the BBC is “tainted” and “full of hatred” for India and called the broadcaster corrupt, without offering any specifics. Critics and political opponents decried the ban as an assault on press freedom in India.

The BBC said in a statement at the time that the documentary was “rigorously researched” and involved a wide range of voices and opinions. “We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series — it declined to respond,” the statement said.

Last month, the BBC broadcast a documentary in the UK entitled “India: The Modi Question” that examined Modi’s role during 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. Modi has denied allegations that authorities under his watch allowed and even encouraged the bloodshed and the Supreme Court said it found no evidence to prosecute him.

Last year, the court dismissed a petition filed by a Muslim victim questioning Modi’s exoneration. The second portion of the two-part documentary examined “the track record of Narendra Modi’s government following his re-election in 2019,” according to the program’s description on the BBC website.

The program prompted an immediate backlash from the government, which invoked emergency powers under its information technology laws to block it.

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