Delhi Police Raid On NewsClick Offices and Journalists’ houses, Case Under UAPA

Police raided the houses of some journalists associated with the Newsclick website in Delhi, Noida, and Ghaziabad. The names of the journalists who were raided here are said to be Bhasha Singh, Urmilesh, Prabir Purkayastha, Abhisar Sharma, Aunindyo Chakraborty, and Sohail Hashmi. Journalists Abhisar Sharma and Bhasha Singh have also given information on this matter through tweets. Abhisar has written that Delhi Police reached his house early in the morning on Tuesday (3 October). And their laptop and phone have been snatched away.

At the same time, Bhasha Singh wrote that she was doing her last tweet from this phone. After this Delhi Police confiscated his phone.

News agency ANI, quoting sources associated with Delhi Police, has said that raids are going on at various premises associated with Newsclick, but no arrests have been made so far.

According to a report by Arvind Ojha associated with Aaj Tak, the Special Cell of Delhi Police conducted these raids on a large scale in Delhi, Noida, and Ghaziabad on Tuesday. Delhi Police Special Cell has also registered a case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). According to Ojha, during the raid, the Special Cell of Delhi Police seized a lot of electronic evidence, laptops, and mobile phones. Apart from this, the police have also taken the data of many computer hard disks with them.

This entire controversy started after a report published in the New York Times (NYT) on August 5. NYT published a report about American businessman Neville Roy Singham. Told how Neville Roy funds organizations around the world, which act as “propaganda tools” of the Chinese government. Reports suggest that Singham himself lives in Shanghai. Last month, he also participated in the workshop of the Communist Party of China, in which there was discussion about spreading the party across the world.

The institute also said that the Delhi High Court has given a verdict in favor of Newsclick in the current case. The court has given interim relief from arrest to many officials of the company. Apart from this, the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court has quashed the complaint filed by the Income Tax Department against Newsclick. The court had said that there was no merit in the case.