Indian tax authorities raided BBC\u2019s New Delhi offices on Tuesday, weeks after it aired a documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s actions during deadly sectarian riots in 2002.
\nAccording to international media reports, police sealed off the building and half a dozen officers were stationed outside the office \u2014 which occupies two floors \u2014 to prevent people from entering or leaving.
\nA BBC employee based in the office told media that the tax raid was in progress and that officials were \u201cconfiscating all phones\u201d.
\n\u201cThere is government procedure happening inside the office,\u201d an official said, declining to disclose their department.
\nAfter the raids, BJP spokesman Gaurav Bhatia told reporters that \u201cthe BBC indulges in anti-India propaganda\u201d. \u201cIndia is a country which gives an opportunity to every organisation\u2026 as long as you don\u2019t spew venom. \u201c
\nLast month, the broadcaster aired a two-part documentary alleging that Modi ordered police to turn a blind eye to sectarian riots in Gujarat state, where he was premier at the time.
\nThe violence left at least 1,000 people dead, most of them minority Muslims. India\u2019s government blocked videos and tweets sharing links to the documentary using emergency powers under its information technology laws.
\nGovernment adviser Kanchan Gupta had slammed the documentary as \u201chostile propaganda and anti-India garbage\u201d.
\nUniversity student groups later organised viewings of the documentary despite campus bans, defying government efforts to stop its spread. Police arrested two dozen students at the prestigious Delhi University after stopping a screening there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Indian tax authorities raided BBC\u2019s New Delhi offices on Tuesday, weeks after it aired a documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s actions during deadly sectarian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4827,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}