NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police on Tuesday brought NewsClick writers Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Urmilesh to the special cell offices in the national capital. Two senior police officials also are at the special cell premises.
This comes as Delhi police’s raids are under way at different premises linked to NewsClick under UAPA and other sections.
Sources informed that laptops, mobiles, diaries and other seized articles were also brought by police to a special cell at the Lodhi Road office. The raids are being conducted on a case registered on August 17 under UAPA and other sections of IPC, which include 153A of IPC (promoting enmity between two groups), and 120 B of IPC (criminal conspiracy).
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Gaurav Yadav, the counsel for Urmilesh, who also reached Delhi Police Special Cell office, said he had no information on why the writer had been taken to the special cell office. “Urmilesh’s wife informed me that he has been arrested by Delhi Police. I have no other details as of now”, he said.
Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur said that if anyone has done something, investigation agencies are free to carry out investigations. “I don’t need to justify… If anyone has committed anything wrong, search agencies are free to carry out investigations against them under set guidelines”, Thakur said.
Raids are under way at over 30 locations, allegedly linked to NewsClick, Delhi Police sources said on Tuesday. “Raids underway at different premises linked to NewsClick, no arrests made so far,” the sources added.
Earlier on August 22, the Delhi High Court issued notice to news portal NewsClick’s Editor in Chief Prabir Purkayastha on a plea filed by Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EoW), seeking direction to vacate its interim order asking the probe agency not to take any coercive action against the news site.
The high court, on July 7, 2021, passed an order directing that Prabir Purkayastha shall not be arrested, adding, however, that he will have to cooperate with the investigation as and when required by the investigating officer. The bench of Justice Saurabh Benrajee sought a response from Purkayastha in the matter.
According to the EOW FIR, a case was registered under IPC sections 406, 420 and 120-B and an investigation was launched. During the probe, the sleuths gathered evidence indicating criminal acts.
The FIR states that the accused persons, in conspiracy with their accomplices based abroad, devised a deceitful scheme to obtain and receive funds for undertaking activities as per instructions received from their foreign-based benefactors, by disguising the funds received as Foreign Direct Investment.
After seeking protection from arrest, the petitioner Prabir Purkayastha joined the investigation and he merely provided the balance sheets of PPK Newsclick Studio Pvt. Ltd. for the financial year 2017-2018, 2018-2019, 2019-2020, but failed to provide closures of the balance sheets to check their source of revenue, expenditures, end use of funds FDI, and fund/revenue from foreign entities, stated the EOW.
Earlier, the ED also moved the Delhi High Court against NewsClick and its editor-in-chief through a fresh application stating that it was a case of grave criminal conspiracy for paid news.
The agency, in February 2021, raided the premises of NewsClick and the residences of its editors in connection with a case of alleged money laundering and conducted search and seizure operations. Its case related to alleged foreign funding is based on an FIR registered by Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing. (ANI)
BJP leader Dushyant Kumar Gautam said strict actions will be taken on NewsClick or any other agency that will work on the funds from foreign countries.
“Strict action will be taken on NewsClick or any other agency that will work on the funds from foreign countries to break the country. China does not want to see our country grow and it is trying to use anti-national agencies against the country”.
Congress spokesperson and permanent invitee to the CWC, Gurdeep Sappal, criticised the government for this action
“So the crackdown media and journalists is not just a matter of a instant causation. It is expression of the political philosophy of BJP/RSS, it represents the India they want to create surreptitiously”, Sappal said in a post on X.
On August 10, a report in the New York Times had alleged that NewsClick was part of a global network that receives funding from American billionaire Neville Roy Singham.
Singham, a socialist benefactor of far-Left causes, is at the centre of a lavishly funded influence campaign that defends China and pushes its propaganda. Neville Roy Singham is said to have close ties to the Chinese government media machine. (ANI)