Dozens of Indian tax agents continued their search of the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai for a third consecutive day on Thursday, calling it a “survey” being carried out over alleged tax evasion by the broadcasting company.
India‘s Income Tax Department said the “survey” was being conducted “in view of the BBC’s deliberate non-compliance with the Transfer Pricing Rules and its vast diversion of profits,” labeling the media agency a “repeat offender.”
During the raid, the BBC employees were reportedly not allowed to leave the premises while mobile phones and laptops of several journalists and staff were seized by the officials. Also, the night shift employees were prevented from entering the office.
In response, the BBC tweeted, “The Income Tax Authorities are currently at the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai and we are fully cooperating.”
“We hope to have this situation resolved as soon as possible.” added the tweet.
Possible reasons
The so-called tax evasion searches came nearly a month after BBC broadcasted a two-part documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” critical of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The documentary is critical of PM Modi’s alleged role in deadly anti-Muslim riots that killed hundreds of Muslims in Modi’s home state, Gujrat, when he was its chief minister in 2002.
The Indian government had banned the transmission of the documentary in India and compelled social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube to remove video clips calling it “hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage” with a “colonial mindset”.
Global condemnations
The ongoing search taxes at the BBC offices attracted criticism from within the country as well as from across the globe. Press advocates both in India and across the globe decried it as an assault on press freedom.
Reporters Without Borders, an international media watchdog, called it an assault on press freedom and criticized the Indian government’s action as “attempts to clamp down on independent media.”
“These raids have all the appearance of a reprisal against the BBC for releasing a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi three weeks ago. They have come at a time when independent media are being hounded more and more, and when pluralism is shrinking in India due to increased media concentration,” the group said in a statement.
Case of vendetta
The Press Club of India characterized the raids as a “clear cut case of vendetta”, while Amnesty International deemed them an “affront to free speech.”
Brazen attack
India’s main opposition Congress party described the tax raid as a “brazen attack” on India’s free press.
“If someone tries to shed light on the prime minister’s past, or dig out details of his past…the present and future of that media house will be destroyed by his agencies. That is the reality,” the party’s media department head, Pawan Khera, told reporters Wednesday. “India is the mother of democracy but why is India’s prime minister the father of hypocrisy?”
Meanwhile, the Indian Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal also condemned the BBC office’s search saying the action “reeks of desperation and shows that the Modi government is scared of criticism”.
“We condemn these intimidation tactics in the harshest terms. This undemocratic and dictatorial attitude cannot go on any longer,” he said in a tweet.