New Delhi: In its FIR filed in the NewsClick case on 17 August under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, for alleged receipt of funds from China, the Delhi Police Special Cell has claimed it had received “secret inputs” that the news portal received “foreign funds in crores” to “disrupt sovereignty and territorial integrity of India”.
ThePrint has seen a copy of the FIR, which names NewsClick editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha, Shanghai-based American businessman Neville Roy Singham and activist Gautam Navlakha, as the accused. Navlakha is also an accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence case.
The latest FIR against NewsClick has been filed under sections 13 (unlawful activities), 16 (terrorist act), 17 (raising funds for terrorist acts), 18 (conspiracy) and 22 (C) (offences by companies) of the UAPA, as well as sections 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).
“It is stated that secret inputs have been received that foreign funds in crores have been infused illegally in India by Indian and Foreign entities inimical to India in pursuance of conspiracy with the intention to disrupt sovereignty and territorial integrity of India, to cause disaffection against India and to threaten the unity, integrity, security of India,” claims the FIR.
The FIR also claims that Roy Singham, “an active member of the propaganda department of the Communist Party of China” has been infusing funds through PPK NewsClick Pvt Ltd, run by Purkayastha and Navalakha — and Amit Sengupta, Doraeeswami Raghunanandan, Bappaditya Sinha, referred to in the FIR as NewsClick shareholders/partners — to “threaten the unity, integrity and security of India”.
The FIR also claimed that funds infused into NewsClick were distributed to journalists Abhisar Sharma, Urmilesh (identified by a single name only), Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Trina Shankar and Aratrika Halder, among others. The FIR went on to claim that these journalists were associates of civil rights activist Teesta Setalvad. The ED is reportedly probing fund transfers amounting to approximately Rs 40 lakh from NewsClick to Teesta Setalvad’s family.
NewsClick in a statement Wednesday had denied allegations of “Chinese propaganda”.
It released another statement Friday, responding to the FIR, saying, “the allegations in the FIR, apart from being ex facie untenable and bogus, have been made time and again, in investigations by three government agencies. The latest FIR has been registered only to circumvent this protection and carry out illegal arrests under the draconian UAPA.”
The statement added: “As stated in previous NewsClick statements, NewsClick has not received any funding or instructions from China or Chinese entities. NewsClick has never committed or sought to encourage violence, secession or any illegal act in any manner whatsoever. The completely absurd nature of allegations in the FIR clearly show that the proceedings initiated against NewsClick are nothing but a blatant attempt to muzzle the free and independent press in India.”
The Delhi Police served a copy of the FIR to the portal Friday, a day after a city court directed it to do so.
Delhi Police teams Tuesday raided at least 30 locations across Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad and Mumbai, according to police sources, in connection to the case. Raids were carried out at the Mumbai house of Setalvad and the office of Sabrang India, of which Setalvad is the editor, the sources added.
The police Tuesday also arrested Purkayastha and NewsClick human resources head Amit Chakravarty and sealed the office of the news portal at Delhi’s Sainik Farm, registered in the name of PPK NewsClick Studio Pvt. Ltd. On Thursday, The two were remanded in police custody for seven days.
Delhi High Court Friday also sought police response to pleas filed by Purkayastha and Chakravarty challenging their arrest and seeking interim release till the pendency of the petitions.
NewsClick has already been under the scanner of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for allegedly receiving funds from China, routed through the United States. The news portal had also faced an income tax raid in 2021.
The investigators have also claimed that NewsClick’s “China link” was established by its association with Roy Singham, described in the agency’s documents as a “close confidant” of editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha and a contact person of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
A New York Times investigation report in August this year, claimed that the news portal had been incorporating “Chinese government talking points” into its coverage.
The FIR registered by Delhi Police in August claims Purkayastha, Roy Singham and some other employees of his Chinese-based company, StarStream, exchanged emails which “expose” and establish their attempts to create a narrative that both Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh were “disputed territories”.
The FIR also accuses those named in the FIR of conspiring to “disrupt supplies and services” necessary for people in India, funding the farmers’ protests of 2020-21 (against three controversial farm laws brought in by the Narendra Modi government which have now been repealed), discrediting the Indian government’s efforts at containing the Covid pandemic and trying to sabotage the general elections of 2019.
Responses from those accused/named in the FIR are awaited. ThePrint will update the article once responses are received.
Also read: ‘Journalism can’t be prosecuted as terrorism’ — media groups write to CJI on NewsClick raids
‘Conspired to commit unlawful activities and terrorist acts’
According to the FIR, Navlakha and Purkyastha have known each other since 1991, when they together incorporated a company named Sagarik Process Analyst Pvt. Ltd., and the former has been a shareholder in NewsClick since its inception in 2018.
The FIR also alleges that Navlakha has been involved in “anti-India activities”, such as “supporting banned Naxal organisations” and Ghulam Nabi Fai, a Kashmiri separatist who had been convicted in the US for being a “paid operative” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
“Further, it is learnt that Gautam Navlakha who is a shareholder in PPK NewsClick Studio Pvt Ltd since its inception in the year 2018, remained involved in anti-Indian and unlawful activities, such as actively supporting banned Naxal organisations and having anti-national nexus with Gulam Nabi Fai who is an agent of ISI of Pakistan. It is also learnt that Gautam Navlakha is associated with Prabir Purkayastha since 1991 when they incorporated Sagrik Process Analyst Pvt Ltd,” the FIR alleges.
The FIR goes on claim that there was an establishment of “mutually beneficial nexus” between Indian companies and “inimical” foreign establishments and that these establishments “backed, funded and supported” the farmers’ agitation of 2020-21, which “contributed to the loss of hundreds of crores rupees to the Indian economy” and also disrupted law and order in the country.
The FIR also alleges that both Purkayastha and Roy Singham, along with another accused identified in the FIR as Vijay Parshad, have been involved in discrediting the efforts of the Indian government in containing the Covid-19 pandemic.
Purkhayasta has also been accused of trying to sabotage the 2019 parliamentary elections, in partnership with the group People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (PADS). Details of how they tried to allegedly do this are not mentioned in the FIR.
The FIR also claims that companies of Chinese origin — Xiaomi and Vivo — incorporated shell companies in India by violating the rules and provisions of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) and furthered the conspiracy of running false narratives against India.
But Purkayastha, Roy Singham, activist Geeta Hariharan, and lawyer Gautam Bhatia, “hatched a conspiracy” to put up a spirited legal fight against cases filed against these companies. Bhatia has been named as a “key person” in this.
“That Prabir Purkayastha, Neville Roy Singham, Gautam Navlakha, and their known and unknown associates have been involved in continuous unlawful activities which include undermining India’s unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. That aforementioned accused have conspired to commit unlawful activities and terrorist acts by aiding and abetting disruption of supplies and services essential for life of community and continued damage and destruction of property through illegal means,” states the FIR.
It adds: “By inciting disaffection among the people especially farmers towards the democratically elected Govt of India they have been creating divisions and disharmony among different group/classes of people as a part of a larger criminal conspiracy having international ramifications. The accused have employed a web of illegal transactions through illegal and circuitous route using several companies etc. to illegally infuse foreign funds for perpetrating aforementioned acts through conspiracy.”
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
Also read: Headlines say it all—NewsClick coverage shows a deeply divided Indian media