Days after Income Tax Department’s “survey” at its Delhi and Mumbai offices, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has claimed that the investigating agency misbehaved with employees and stopped journalists from working for hours.
This contradicts Central Board of Direct taxes’s (CBDT) which claimed “the survey was conducted in a manner so as to facilitate continued regular media/channel activity. “
BBC says journalists were not allowed to work
BBC Hindi released an article with the title “BBC ne kaha hard jo shawl use seedha pooch jaayega uska uchit jawab milega (Every question asked straight will be answered appropriately)”.
“BBC journalists were not allowed to work for many hours. The Income Tax Department employees and policemen also misbehaved with several journalists,” the article read.
“Journalists’ computers were searched, their phones were intercepted and information was sought from them about their working methods. Along with this, the journalists working in the Delhi office were stopped from writing anything about this survey,” it added.
“Even when people were allowed to work after senior editors persistently asked the officials to let work continue, Hindi and English journalists were stopped from working. Journalists of both these languages were allowed to work only when they reached close to the broadcast time,” the article further claims.
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BBC documentary on PM Modi
The Union Finance Ministry said on Friday that the exercise had indicated that the “income/profits shown by various group entities is not comparable with the extent of operations in India” in its first formal statement regarding the Income Tax Department’s “surveys”.
A BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s involvement in the riots in Gujarat in 2002 was just recently made public. The documentary had been taken down by the Union government because they claimed it had “propagandist agenda” on Twitter and YouTube. So, the timing of the raids has come under fire as an alleged effort to curtail journalistic freedom.
Also read: US warns China not to repeat its “irresponsible act” of sending spy balloon into American Airspace
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