Officials from India's financial investigation agency have said that a complaint has been filed against BBC's India branch for alleged breaches of foreign exchange laws.
After the BBC produced a documentary analyzing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's management of a violent riot in 2002, Indian tax officials raided BBC headquarters, marking an escalation in India's activities against the British broadcaster.
The ED Investigation
In a report by The Washington Post, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has come under fire for its aggressive targeting of political opponents, activists, and journalists under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
According to local sources, the ED has interviewed seven BBC workers, including a director, and has requested pertinent papers from BBC authorities.
The ED, which investigates and prosecutes charges of money laundering and foreign financing, can punish foreign exchange rule offenders because of the Foreign Exchange Management Act. The case is filed under this bill.
Based on the ED's website, just over half of the almost 34,000 instances it is investigating under this statute have been resolved.
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Counterattacking the Press
The Indian government has a history of retaliating against media outlets it views as being critical of its rule. In February, tax agents raided BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai, confiscating staff's phones.
The search occurred not long after the BBC aired a divisive documentary reviving decades-old claims that Modi had failed to prevent a brutal riot in his home state of Gujarat when he was chief minister.
Indian authorities utilized emergency blocking powers to demand that social media sites erase the documentary's connections, and riot police were sent to universities nationwide to jail students who were screening the documentary. According to The Indian Express, students at institutions like Delhi University have petitioned with faculty leaders to be reinstated after being suspended for showing the video despite the university's decision to do so.
Meanwhile, officials from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have claimed that the BBC may be getting dubious money from China in the wake of the tax raid on BBC premises.
Overlaps With Ongoing Demonstrations
The new ED case coincides with persistent public protests by the opposition parties, The Washington Post reported. This is in response to the disqualification of the country's most prominent opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, from competing in the next election.
Opposition parties, in a petition to the Supreme Court that was rejected last week, had claimed that India's investigative agencies were being exploited against crucial figures. This allegation was corroborated by an investigation in the Indian Express.
The ED has investigated wealthy fugitives Vijaya Mallya and Nirav Modi, journalist Rana Ayyub, and left-leaning Indian internet news portal NewsClick, among others.
