The Delhi Police has accused NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha of pushing a “global agenda” to demonstrate that Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir are not parts of India.
Purkayastha was arrested in a case under the anti-terror law UAPA after allegations that the portal received funding to spread pro-China propaganda.
According to a report, the Delhi Police has accused NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha of pushing a “global agenda” to demonstrate that Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir are not parts of India. Purkayastha was detained in connection with a case brought under the anti-terror law UAPA following allegations that the portal received funding to spread pro-China propaganda.
India Today was able to access the remand application for his arrest, in which the Delhi Police claimed to have email records between Prabir Purkayastha and American tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham discussing how to draw a map of India that would label Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh as “disputed territories.”
The Special Cell of the Delhi Police detained Prabir Purkayastha and Amit Chakravarty on Tuesday after a raid was conducted on the homes of numerous journalists and staff members connected to the news portal.
According to the authorities, Purkayastha and Chakravarty obtained foreign funding totaling more than Rs 115 crore to produce the aforementioned map. Additionally, it was discovered that the portal has been receiving foreign funds through “illegal means” totaling crores since 2018. Neville Roy Singham, according to the authorities, “fraudulently infused” the money through an intricate network of numerous businesses.
The Delhi Police claimed that they had learned that Gautam Navlakha, a stakeholder in NewsClick, was involved in anti-Indian and illegal actions, including actively supporting Naxal organizations that were outlawed and having contacts to Gulam Nabi Fai, a representative of the Pakistani spy agency ISI.
Additionally, it has come to light that Purkayastha and his friends stole foreign monies, according to the police.
According to the plea, “the accused persons have also conspired to interfere with supplies and services that are necessary for community life in India and to aid in property damage and destruction by prolonging farmers’ protests through such illegal foreign funding.”
For More: News
Additionally, Prabir Purkayastha participated in a plot to rig the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. According to the police application, a false narrative was pushed to cast doubt on the Indian government’s efforts to stop the COVID-19 outbreak.
These “false narratives” were distributed using “illegally routed” foreign cash through the “People’s Dispatch Portal,” which is owned and operated by NewsClick, it was stated.
Prabir Purkayastha and Amit Chakravarty were each given seven days of imprisonment after the Delhi Police successfully filed for a 15-day police remand.
Delhi’s NewsClick headquarters has been secured by the police. According to reports, digital devices, including laptops and mobile phones, along with documents, were taken away for examination while 46 suspects were interrogated.
The Chief Justice of India (CJI), D Y Chandrachud, has been contacted about the situation by a number of eminent journalistic organizations, including the PCI, Digipub News India Foundation, and the Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC).
Organizations including the Digipub News India Foundation, IWPC, and PCI among others signed a letter addressed to CJI Chandrachud.
At least 400 police officers conducted raids on Tuesday at 30 different sites in Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Mumbai, and Ghaziabad. During these raids, 46 people—including journalists, independent contractors, writers, and satirists—were interrogated for eight hours.
On August 17, the special cell of the Delhi Police filed a complaint under sections 16 (terrorist act), 17 (raising funds for terrorist act), 18 (conspiracy), and 22C (offenses by companies, societies, or trusts) of the UAPA as well as sections 153A (promoting enmity) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code. ED searched NewsClick and Purkayastha’s offices in 2021.
The website has refuted every accusation. The Reserve Bank of India substantiated this in proceedings before the high court of Delhi, it said in a statement. “All funding received by Newsclick has been through the appropriate banking channels and have been reported to the relevant authorities as required by law.”
According to PTI, the journalist organizations claimed that many writers in the nation operate under the danger of retaliation.