The Delhi Police on Friday raided the home of former NewsClick employee Anusha Paul in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district as part of an investigation against the digital news website, reported The Hindu.

This came after the police arrested the news website’s founder Prabir Purkayastha and human resources head Amit Chakraborty on Tuesday and booked them under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the country’s anti-terror law.

Paul worked for NewsClick between 2018 and 2022. She is a researcher with the National Platform For the Rights of the Disabled.

On Friday, the Delhi Police team asked Paul whether she knew KM Tiwari, the Delhi secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), reported The Hindu. The police also took Paul’s laptop and mobile phone and asked her to report to their office in New Delhi at the earliest.

“This is a witch-hunt to threaten the organisation and its employees who used to raise voice against the Narendra Modi government and the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh],” Paul told Mathrubhumi.

Paul also told the news website that she knew Tiwari since she is also a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). “I am a state committee member of Delhi unit of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and its state treasurer,” she told Mathrubhumi.

She was also asked whether she reported on the farmers’ protests, National Register of Citizens-Citizenship Amendment Act protests and the management of the Covid pandemic by the Central government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Kerala Police told Paul that they were not aware of the Delhi Police team conducting raids at her home.

The raid at Paul’s home came three days after the Delhi Police conducted searches at homes of 46 journalists, including former employees, junior staffers and contributors of NewsClick. The security personnel also seized electronic devices, and in some cases, even detained people for questioning.

Some of the notable journalists who were questioned by the police include Abhisar Sharma, Bhasha Singh, Aunindyo Chakravarty, Bhasha Singh, Urmilesh, Sumedha Pal, Aritry Das and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.

FIR against NewsClick

The first information report registered on August 17 has accused NewsClick of taking funds from China in “circuitous and camouflaged manner” to disrupt sovereignty of India. However, the police have not supported these claims with concrete evidence.

The FIR was registered after The New York Times alleged in an August 5 report that the Indian news website had received money from American businessman Neville Roy Singham, who worked closely with the “Chinese government media machine” to spread its propaganda.

An email between Purkayastha, a company owned by Singham called StarStream and some of its Chinese employees shows their intention to peddle a narrative that Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh are disputed territories, the FIR alleged.

“Their attempts to tinker with the northern borders of India and to show Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh as not parts of India in maps amount to an act intended towards undermining the unity and territorial integrity of India,” it states.

The FIR has also accused Purkayastha and Singham of “actively” spreading false information to “discredit” the Indian government’s efforts to contain the Covid pandemic. The accused persons also conspired to disrupt essential supplies and services during the farmer protests through illegal funding, it adds.

“By inciting dissatisfaction among the people, especially farmers, towards the democratically elected government of India, they have been creating divisions among different groups/classes of people as part of a larger conspiracy having international ramifications,” the FIR reads.

NewsClick, however, said that that the allegations in the FIR are “untenable and bogus”. It said that the “absurd nature” of the FIR show that the proceedings are nothing an attempt to muzzle the free and independent press in India.

“As stated in previous NewsClick statements, NewsClick has not received any funding or instructions from China or Chinese entities,” it said. “Further, NewsClick has never committed or sought to encourage violence, secession or any illegal act in any manner whatsoever. A perusal of NewsClick’s coverage, which is freely available online, should be sufficient to indicate the veracity of NewsClick’s claims.”

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