India: BBC offices raided after documentary on Modi

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian tax authorities began searching the offices of the BBC in the capital New Delhi on Tuesday, three of its employees told The Associated Press.

The raid comes weeks after British television aired a controversial documentary examining Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots.

The employees asked not to be named as they were not authorized to speak in public.

Revenue department teams raided BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, citing unnamed officials.

Indian tax authorities declined to comment on the situation. The BBC was not immediately available for comment.

India prohibited my passage and documentary on the back of “India: The Modi Question” and the self-imposed pressure to hold the proyecciones and the restriction of its dissemination in social media, in a media that the critics and the political opositores qualified as an attempt against the freedom of press.

India’s Foreign Ministry called the documentary a “piece of propaganda designed to promote a particularly discredited narrative” which “lacks objectivity”.

In a statement, the BBC said the documentary had been “rigorously researched” and had a wide range of voices and opinions.

“We offered the Indian government the right to respond to the issues raised in the series, but they refused,” the note said.