Over 480 electronic devices seized in NewsClick probe forensically tested: Cops
The police on October 3, 2023 conducted raids at residences of former and present staff of the news portal in Delhi, Noida, Mumbai, Gurugram and other locations
The Delhi Police special cell on Wednesday revealed that more than 480 electronic devices such as mobile phones and laptops that were seized as part of its probe into news portal NewsClick, have been forensically examined. A report of all the data recovered was prepared last week and was sent to senior police officers for review, officers aware of the matter said.
The police on October 3, 2023 conducted raids at the residences of former and present employees of the news portal in Delhi, Noida, Mumbai, Gurugram and several other locations. The police have accused NewsClick of being part of a global network that received illegal funding from US billionaire Neville Roy Singham — who allegedly works closely with the Chinese government media machine — and have alleged that the news portal spread pro-China propaganda and criticised domestic policies.
The raids came two months after the police filed a first information report (FIR) under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and Indian Penal Code sections relating to criminal conspiracy and promoting enmity between different groups.
The police later arrested NewsClick co-founder Prabir Purkayastha and its head of human resources Amit Chakravarty.
On Wednesday, investigators said the report of the data recovered mentions all the chats, mail trails, bank statements, transactions and files related to their probe, but are now pushing for further examination to recover deleted data.
“We wanted all the data, including dump data and deleted data, from the devices. For this, we specifically sent all the phones to the National Cyber Forensic Lab (NCFL) for examination. More than 440 phones and 40-50 hard disks, disks and drives were seized. We were told to extract chats, bank transactions, statements and look for other incriminating evidence such as files and media. We wanted to find the larger conspiracy and who all were involved in it. We were also looking for persons who received the illegal funds,” a senior special cell officer said, on condition of anonymity.
A second officer said they suspect that a large chunk of the deleted data is still unrecovered. “The problem with deleted data is that not all of it can be recovered. After 4-6 months, it is difficult to recover deleted chats and media files. We believe the accused are hiding several chats which are important for the investigation. There have been multiple raids at the NewsClick office which might have alerted them, and they have wiped off a lot of data. We have found emails and transactions to prove they received illegal funding from shell companies. However, a lot of chats and files are missing” the officer said.
Officers said the forensic lab report consists of “incriminating” mail trails and bank statements which will be further reviewed and submitted to the court in the form of a final report.
An official at NCFL said that so far, they have not recovered any data that suggests any terror angle. “We checked all phones and recovered most chats, media files and other text files. However, there is no evidence which points to a terror angle. The investigating team are pushing for further examination to extract deleted data,” the official said, on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media.
Meanwhile, NewsClick denied the allegations made by the police, and accused the force of “stifling” their “independent and critical journalism”.
“We have approached the courts for recovering the over 400 devices which were seized on October 3, 2023. The seizure of these devices was in complete violation of established procedures and no backups have been given till date. Given the complete lack of procedure by the Delhi Police, we have maintained from the beginning that the tampering of data cannot be ruled out. We have raised these issues before the courts,” the news portal said in a statement.