India tax officials search BBC offices weeks after Modi doc

NEW DELHI (AP) — Officers from India’s Earnings Tax division started conducting searches Tuesday on the BBC’s workplaces within the capital, New Delhi, three of the broadcaster’s employees members informed the Related Press.

The search comes weeks after the British broadcaster launched a controversial documentary that examined Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’s function throughout 2002 anti-Muslim riots.

The workers requested to not be recognized as a result of they weren’t licensed to talk publicly.

Groups from the tax division surveyed the BBC’s Delhi and Mumbai workplaces, the Press Belief of India information company reported, quoting officers whom they didn’t establish.

India tax authorities declined to touch upon the scenario. The BBC was not instantly obtainable to remark.

India banned the two-part documentary “India: The Modi Query” final month and authorities scrambled to halt screenings of this system and limit clips of it on social media in a transfer that critics and political opponents decried as an assault on press freedom.

India’s Overseas Ministry referred to as the documentary a “propaganda piece designed to push a very discredited narrative” that lacked objectivity.”

The BBC in an announcement had mentioned the documentary was “rigorously researched” and concerned a variety of voices and opinions.

“We provided the Indian Authorities a proper to answer to the issues raised within the sequence — it declined to reply,” the assertion mentioned.