BBC Raid: The BBC staff has been ordered to keep their phones shut.
The Income Tax Department is conducting a "survey" at the British Broadcasting Service's (BBC) Delhi office. It isn't clear as of now why the department visited the London-based company. Sources from the department told Zee Media that it isn't a raid but a survey. They said a team of 60-70 people are part of the 'survey' at BBC's Delhi office.
The BBC staff have been ordered to keep their phones shut. Nobody is being allowed to enter or come out of the premises. According to reports, BBC's London office has been apprised of the development.
The Congress, meanwhile, has blamed the recent row over a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the action. The party called the move part of what it described as an undeclared emergency.
"First, a BBC documentary came and it was banned. Now BBC Delhi is being raided. Undeclared emergency. Here we are demanding a JPC on the Adani saga and there the government is after the BBC," said senior leader Jairam Ramesh.
Last week, the Supreme Court dismissed a plea seeking imposition of a ban on the BBC documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots, calling the petition "misconceived and meritless".
The plea claimed the documentary was a result of deep conspiracy against the rise of India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"The documentary film by BBC relating to Gujarat violence 2002 implicating Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not only reflective of anti-Narendra Modi cold propaganda broadcast to tarnish his image alone but this is anti-Hinduism propaganda by the BBC to destroy the social fabric of India," the plea had alleged.
The Supreme Court had sought responses from the Centre on separate petitions challenging its decision to block the documentary.
The name of the BBC documentary is 'India:The Modi Question'. The documentary that chronicles the ghastly 2002 Gujarat riots was dubbed by the Centre as a "propaganda piece". The Centre later ordered social media platforms to delete tweets and videos showing the documentary. The opposition slammed the move and called it censorship. "Truth shines bright. It has a nasty habit of coming out. So no amount of banning, oppression and frightening people is going to stop the truth from coming out," Congress MP Rahul Gandhi had tweeted.
Despite the ban, several political organisations screened the documentary in their respective universities.
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 "BBC raid: Nobody is being allowed to enter or come out of the premises. (Representational)")
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