India’s tax officials have raided the offices of British media BBC in Delhi and Mumbai. On Tuesday (February 14) at 11:30 local time, the two BBC offices were raided simultaneously. The raid came weeks after the release of a documentary on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. News agency AFP and Indian media Times of India confirm this information. During the raid, the tax officials seized personal belongings including mobile phones from the BBC staff. In this incident, it is known that intense anger and dissatisfaction has arisen in the journalists’ circle of Delhi. AFP reports that police have surrounded the BBC building in Delhi. Moreover, police have been deployed outside to prevent anyone from entering or leaving the building. An Indian tax official, who did not want to be named, said they had found documents of the BBC’s business operations. The BBC office was raided mainly on charges of tax evasion. But a BBC official told AFP that tax officials had confiscated all their telephones and mobile phones. Meanwhile, India’s main opposition political party, Congress, has expressed extreme anger over the search. In a tweet from the party’s official Twitter account, the BBC documentary was first banned. Now the Income Tax Department raided the BBC office. It is essentially an undeclared emergency. Influential Congress leader Jairam Ramesh strongly condemned the incident and said, “Wisdom perishes in destruction”. He pointed the finger at the central BJP government. He claimed that the central BJP government has practically revealed their nature on various issues including Adani. They have come under the wrath of the central government due to the publication of several media reports about it. the On January 17 this year, the BBC-2 channel, titled ‘India: The Modi Question’, aired the documentary. There, Modi’s role during communal riots in Gujarat in 2002 was highlighted. Soon after its airing, the documentary sparked a huge controversy across India. The Indian government has already blocked videos and tweets sharing links to the documentary, using emergency powers under the Information Technology Act. Although the documentary has not yet been banned in India, it has been ordered to be blocked on social media, The Times of India reported. At least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, lost their lives in the 2002 Gujarat riots. The most interesting part of the almost one-hour documentary is a secret report by the former British Foreign Secretary on the Gujarat riots. The report was commissioned by Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary for Accounts from 2001 to 2006, during the riots. Jack Straw himself said this in an interview given in the documentary. “We have formed a team to go to Gujarat and independently investigate the reasons behind the riots,” he said. The team later submitted a detailed report.
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